Truth Or Dare
by Feilyn
Summary: Momo has a secret. Well, if truth be told, Momo has many secrets, but this is a biggy. She's never had much luck with love, but when she finally finds it can she trust - and be trusted - enough to tell her secrets? Part of Lost And Found. Momo/Shuuhei
1. Chapter 1

_**Alright, here we go! Welcome, readers, to the third multi-chapter installement of the Lost And Found series and what will prove to be, I am sure, the angstiest yet.**_

_Okay, my computer tells me angstiest is not a word, but whatever._

_If you have not read any part of the Lost And Found series:_

_- Why not?_

_- __**This has spoilers**__._

_While _Lost And Found _and _The Stage _were more companion pieces and non-spoilerific of each other for the most part, this is what you might term a sequel. It takes place after the end events of _The Stage_, and if you have no idea what happens there, don't want to be spoiled and still want to read this fic, I suggest you go and read that one first. –smile–_

_On a similar vein, here is the suggested reading order for the series._

_- Foreshadow (Hitsugaya/Karin) _

_- Lost And Found, the original (Hitsugaya/Karin) Finding an old love_

_- The Stage (Rangiku/Byakuya OTP!) Finding a new love_

_- The Ring Hunt (Ichi/Ruki) Finding a ring_

_- Truth or Dare (Momo/Shuuhei) Falling out of love and finding new love._

_And then there is Musings, which occurs partway through this fic._

_So! New readers, welcome, old readers, welcome back. It's good to have you on board, and if everyone would be seated, I'd like to get started ;)_

xXx

In the time she'd been dead, Momo had learnt three very important things about love.

1 – Never fall in love with your best friend.

2 – Never fall in love with your superior.

3 – Never fall in love with traitors.

Number three had been the hardest to get over, but the easiest to avoid thereafter. Number one was a little more difficult to escape, but still possible. It was number two that Momo seemed to have the most trouble with.

"Tai-chō!" she sang, swinging into the office with an arm full of paperwork. Kurosaki Ichigo sat slumped at his desk, white haori nowhere to be seen and a shocked look on his face.

Momo frowned, dumping the paperwork on her own desk and waving a hand in her Captain's face. "Taichō? Are you okay?"

"Rukia's pregnant," he blurted, eyes growing wider as he said it. "And I can't figure out how it happened."

Momo borrowed a trick from Rangiku and laughed out loud to hide the fact that her stomach was somewhere in the vicinity of her knees and her heart in the general throat area. "The usual way, I'd assume," she said airily.

Ichigo flushed a little then shook his head. "No, I know…uh, I mean...it's just so rare!" he burst out finally. "And with Maiko born only two months ago it's…"

"Totally unexpected?" Momo offered, returning to her paperwork.

Her Captain swiped a hand over his face and groaned. "Yeah. I mean damn, we just got engaged y'know? I'm not ready to be a father."

She gave him a disbelieved look over the stack of paperwork. "Taichō, children love you. Yuki-kun can't get enough of you, and he's the single most reserved child I've ever met."

"Yeah, but that don't mean—"

"You'll be a great father, taichō," she said firmly, getting started on the day's work.

He didn't reply, but out of the corner of her eye she saw his shoulders relax slightly as the tension rolled out of him.

"You know," she remarked. "One day someone in the Seireitei will have a planned pregnancy and the worlds will fall down."

Ichigo grinned. "Getting ideas, Momo?"

Her hand slipped, a thick black mark scarring the form. She licked her lips a little and ignored the tightening of her throat. "Not me, taichō."

"Aw, why not?" His troubles appeared to have deserted him in the face of teasing her.

She didn't mind, though, even though this particular subject was a sore one. He didn't know that and seeing him smile more than made up for it. "Because, taichō, so far as I know the Twelfth Division has not yet come up with immaculate conception," she huffed, rewriting the form she'd ruined.

Her Captain burst out laughing and Momo smiled softly, reaching for the next paper. It was a good morning when she could get him to laugh before nine o'clock. Ichigo wasn't much of a morning person.

"Well, maybe if you got out of the office for once Momo, you wouldn't have to worry about that."

"I do get out of the office, thank you very much." She stood and wandered over to the kettle. His mug was empty, and she knew that he needed at least four cups of coffee before he was properly awake these days. "I played office soccer with Rangiku and Yuki the just the other day."

"You played office soccer."

"Don't look at me like that!" she protested, half-laughing. It did sound a _little_ silly when she thought about it. Well, a lot silly if she was honest. "And don't pretend like you haven't done the same thing half a dozen times. I've got your number, taichō."

He opened his mouth to retort, then shut it with a snap as she whisked away the Chappy mug that Rukia had painted for him and refilled it. "I can make my own coffee, you know."

"Yes taichō," she agreed, setting the cup down in front of him and dropping three lumps of sugar in. "But not as well as I can."

He smiled ruefully and took a sip of the coffee. "I guess you're right."

"I may not know much, taichō, but I do know coffee."

She was used to watching his emotions change suddenly across his face, but the frown that chased away his smile took her by surprise.

"Geez, I wish you wouldn't do that Momo."

"Do what, taichō?" she asked, confused. Momo was usually careful to make sure she didn't screw up in front of her Captain – she didn't want to give him an excuse to get rid of her.

"Put yourself down like that. I mean, you were freaking Acting-Captain for eighteen years. You've got bankai, for crying out loud. I'd say you know a hell of a lot more than making coffee."

She licked her lips again, a nervous gesture she'd picked up somewhere years before. Her foot shuffled a little as she looked at the floor. She wasted a few seconds on composing herself, then look up and flashed Ichigo a grin so wide her eyes closed.

"Yes taichō. But I'm _really_ good a making coffee."

Only, that didn't make him laugh the way it was meant to. He merely grunted, eyes unreadable, before turning his face to the day's workload.

"Gimme some of that."

"Taichō—"

"You stepped down because of the stress, didn't ya? Except ever since I've taken over you hardly let me do any work at all."

Ah. Stress. The reason she'd given everyone when she stepped aside so easily from the Acting-Captain position. It was a thin excuse, because she could have just accepted the Fifth's haori and become Captain in name as well as actions with a vice-captain to help her instead of becoming the vice-captain herself.

But Momo would never wear that haori. Even now, nearly five years after she had stopped loving Aizen entirely, it was too painful to even look at. She had the sneaking suspicion that Ichigo knew and used his loathing of formalities to cover for her and not wear the thing.

And she hated that. Not the fact that her friends and co-workers went out of their way to protect her, but rather that she required it. After all these years of attempting independence, she still couldn't stop herself from relying on her friends.

"Oi, Momo?" A clenched fist tapped lightly on her forehead. "You there?"

"E-eh?" She nearly jumped to attention, flustered as she was. Thankfully she managed to avoid such an embarrassing mishap, although her back was so straight she might have been wearing a bracing-board. "N-no taichō. I mean yes taichō! I'm sorry?"

He sighed, grabbing a handful of paper off the top of her pile. "C'mere and teach me this."

"Taichō, it'd really be quicker if you just let me—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know it'll take longer _today _if you teach me, but we'll make up for the time later when we both work on it." Ichigo moved back over to his own desk and dumped himself into the chair. "Now what the hell is this?"

Momo bit her lip and then shook her head. "Well…I guess I'm not technically qualified to sign some of these anymore," she admitted, getting up from her own chair and padding over to him. She had to stifle a small grin when she saw what he was glaring at. "Ah. That, taichō, is a five-one-three-bee." She jerked it out of his grasp, glanced over it and screwed it up into a little ball.

"The hell?"

"Trust me, taichō, you don't want to know. Suffice to say the Division's not going to be pleased with you this month and let me handle our sake budget from now on, alright?"

"But—"

She pointed at the new form. "This, taichō, is a seven-nine-eight. Damage caused to Division property by Eleventh. You wouldn't _believe_ how many of these Fourth gets."

Ichigo stared at her. "Are any of these about good things?"

Momo frowned, thinking about it. "No."

His head hit the desk.

"You wanted to do this, taichō," she reminded him. She wasn't beyond teasing back on the odd occasion.

"Shut up."

"Taichō!"

He grinned.

She described the basic code of the number positions to him, and then what each number referred to. By the time the morning was over, he had the hang of it and she was able to return to her own work.

She was still working on the Division's monthly report when he tapped on her shoulder.

"Hmm?" she murmured, not looking up.

"Five o'clock, Momo. Time to go home."

"I have to finish this, taichō."

She could feel his frown, even if she wasn't looking at him.

"You work too hard, Momo."

"Better than not enough," she countered, thinking for a moment that she were Acting-Captain and he a mere subordinate. Then she realised what she said and how she said it and her hands flew to her mouth. "I'm sorry taichō, I didn't mean—"

He was chuckling, she realised, and the sound made her forget whatever hurried excuse she'd been about to deliver.

"It's good to see you've still got some spine in you, Momo," he said, the smile still in his voice. "I wouldn't like to think that I'd had the crap beaten out of me by some girl who didn't know when to stick up for herself."

She flushed and returned to the report, remembering that misunderstanding from five years ago.

"I'll just finish this report, taichō. Hisagi-sem – I mean, Hisagi-_taichō­ _– gets stressed when they're not in to him on time."

He frowned down at the code on the top of the paper she was writing on. "Ain't that due tomorrow?"

"Ise-fukutaichō handed hers in _yesterday_, taichō. And it won't take me long, I promise. And I'll only do this one. Really. Actually, I could probably fit in a few more…five o'clock is really only a guideline—"

"Geez, you never stop, do you? Don't you wanna get home and lie down or something?"

"There's not really that much difference between being home alone and in the office alone, taichō," Momo replied, laughing a little nervously. "I really don't mind."

"Yeah? While I freakin' do. Think of it as an order, if it makes you feel better. Get that report done and in to Hisagi, then go have some fun or something. Office soccer, if you have to."

She mock-glared at him. "I do other things than office soccer!"

"So go and do them," he retorted, before his eyes slid a little to the left and he grinned. "Hey, Momo. You've got this splotch of ink – right here." He tapped his cheek.

"Wh-what?" She rubbed at it, probably a little too hard.

He rolled his eyes. "Other cheek, baka." And with that he reached out and swiped his thumb gently across her cheekbone, coming away with a dark smear. He wiped the thumb on his uniform and shook his head. "See? You're working too hard."

Thankfully he didn't appear to be expecting a response, because Momo was in no condition to give him one. Her cheek tingled ridiculously where his thumb – his _thumb_, for crying out loud! – had touched it and all of a sudden she was overwhelmed with guilt.

This was wrong. This was _so_ wrong. Not only had she fallen in love with another woman's fiancée, she gone and fallen in love with a _friend's _fiancée. And he was her Captain. Her _Captain_ and therefore her superior and rule number two was to never fall in love with your superior.

Of course she had absolutely no intention on following through on this stupid, idiotic, painful, _wonderful _feeling. It would have been wrong in the _extreme _to even contemplate it and even if she had been willing to betray Rukia – which she certainly wasn't – Ichigo would never.

It was part of the reason she loved him.

_I need Rangiku_, she thought hopelessly as she said an absent goodbye to her Captain who was no doubt off to spend the evening with the love of his life. Of course, she batted that thought away immediately. The idea that Rangiku would hate her if she knew the truth was ridiculous, but it lingered nonetheless. Plus, Momo had promised herself that she would work through this on her own. It was a test of her strength, so to speak. Most people spent their lives trying to fall in love. Momo seemed to be spending hers attempting to fall _out._

She finished off the report, felt guilty about leaving the other papers and then felt guilty about feeling guilty when she had promised her Captain that she wouldn't touch them.

Needless to say, Momo had guilt issues. However, knowing that she had guilt issues didn't stop her feeling guilty, so she largely ignored the presence of what Rangiku would term a complex and lived with it. She didn't mind feeling guilty, not when she'd lived with it for so long, so she figured that meant other people shouldn't either.

Except that guilt tended to build on itself, and Momo's friends started to feel guilty for making _her_ feel guilty and she felt guiltier and it was all just one never-ending circle. So she kept it hidden when she could and brushed it off when she couldn't. Easier said than done, of course. She knew that eventually one day her friends would get sick of her never ending sense of responsibility and she'd be alone again.

But she rather deserved to be alone, she thought. So really, that was alright too.

xXx

_So! I hope you weren't too turned off by this first bombshell. The Shuuhei/Momo love will come later, I promise._

_Alright, Stef, I got it up in one go. Happy now?_


	2. Chapter 2

Momo stretched and sighed happily as several popping sounds met her ears

**OMGHOLYSHITEGGSINAHANDBASKET!**

**319!**

**THREE-NINETEEN!**

**OHMY**_**GOD,**_** I CAN'T STOP CAPSLOCKING! BYAKUYA, RANGIKU IS GOING TO TEASE YOU **_**MERCILESSLY**_** FOR THIS**_**!!**_

**OH SHIT, I CAN'T BREATHE. I THINK I JUST COUGHED UP A LUNG.**

_In other news, I think I might be toeing the Sue line a bit with Momo here. Been reading Wiki and she's not lookin' good. So basically, if you think she's getting too Sue-y, drop me a note, yeah? Cos I want to avoid that if at all possible._

_**Also, huge kudos must be given to Philyra**__, who it seems moonlights as a bankai designer. She who helped bring you Tatsumaki Haineko has now aided in the design of Momo's bankai._

_I would also like to credit the name of Hisagi's vice-captain to two of my darling Japanese friends, whose names I won't repeat here, but know that you're much loved! I'm sure you'll recognize the names that belong to you anyway._

_Finally, there's gotta be a better word for short-shorts that doesn't sound as dirty as hot-pants._

xXx

Momo stretched and sighed happily as several popping sounds met her ears. "That's better," she murmured, shuffling together the bits of her report and gathering the rest of the day's completed paperwork under her arm.

She'd kept her promise and only stayed to finish the report for Captain Hisagi, but the last minute delivery of three 798's after a fight about Division superiority had lead to having to rewrite half of the damn thing to fit it all in.

"It's a little silly," she said aloud to the silent office. "Hisagi-sempai…no, Hisagi-_taichō­_ is only going to write a summary of it anyway."

Momo didn't really mind, though. She enjoyed her monthly visits to the Captain of the Ninth Division. It wasn't the only time she spent with him of course, but it was _organised_. If someone asked her to do something on the last Wednesday of any given month after work, she would be able to respond with a 'Sorry, I'm busy. Meeting with Hisagi-sem – _taichō_ – you know.'

It was a little lame, but it made Momo feel like she had a little more of a life outside of office soccer with her best friend's son.

She gave that day's completed paperwork to one of the runners. In her eighteen year sojourn as the Acting Captain of Fifth, she'd designed a far more efficient messenger system specific to the paperwork that had gradually expanded to the other Divisions.

Momo was about halfway to the Ninth Division when a small blur topped with a familiar shock of white zipped past. Moments later, Kurosaki Karin flash-stepped into view.

"Yuki, get your arse back – oh, Momo!" The woman, dressed in her trademark singlet and short-shorts, skidded to a halt. The look on her face was half-amused, half-disgusted. "You beat my brother up a few years ago, didn't you? Would you mind doing it again? Yuki learned shunpō."

Momo blinked. "What? But…he's nine. _Two_ in human years!"

"Prodigy blood carries, by the looks of things. Ichigo got lazy and shunpō'd into the house. Yuki took one look at him, picked up a soccer ball and disappeared. Uh…did you see which way he went?"

"It looked to me like he was heading for Sixth."

Karin groaned. "I should've known. He takes any chance he gets to see Maiko – Ran's ecstatic, of course. I think she's already planning the wedding."

Momo laughed a little, ignoring the pang at the talk of children. She'd gotten used to doing that, having been eased into it with the arrival of Yuki in her life, enough so she was able to hide all but the most persistent winces when Maiko was mentioned. With luck, she'd be perfectly alright during Rukia's pregnancy.

She immediately thought of Ichigo.

_Or not._

"Yo, Momo, y'there?"

Momo jumped slightly at the hand waving in her face. "Hmm? Oh, yes! Sorry…lost in thought."

Karin grinned. "Makes for a nice change in my usual company, then. Don't know how you cope, dealing with my idiot brother every day."

"Oh, he's not so bad," Momo protested. "I taught him how to do the paperwork today!" she added proudly.

Her friend burst out laughing. "Fantastic! You make him sound like a dog!"

"No! No, I didn't mean that!"

Karin laid a friendly hand on Momo's shoulder. "Hey, don't stress, I know you didn't mean it." The hand was removed as the other woman stretched. "Well, Byakuya can look after Yuki for a while then. They get on well together, and at least he'll be able to keep up with the brat. I was just about to see Yuzu before Yuki ran off, anyway. Wanna come?"

Yuzu. Momo had taken the woman under her wing after her death in the real world. Of course, the younger twin was so personable that she hadn't had any trouble finding her own niche in the Academy. Momo still visited her when she had time, usually once a week if she could manage. Yuzu had incredible talent and as a kidō master, it was Momo's responsibility to look out for her.

"Oh, I really would! But I'm busy – have to deliver these papers to Hisagi-taichō."

"Doesn't the working day end at five? Why're you still going?"

"Eh? No, this isn't work! Really!" Somehow this conversation wasn't going as planned. _Even when I have a life, it's work._ "It just…coincides with work, that's all."

Karin cocked her head to the side, toying with the end of her ragged braid. "Do you have a date, Momo?"

She borrowed a trick from her Captain and choked on air. "Me?" she gasped. "No!"

The other woman burst out laughing. "Oh, geez! You should've seen your face! Classic." She shook her head. "Alright, I'm heading out to the Academy then. Oh, and I reckon I saw Rangiku heading out to Ninth just before." She winked. "Consider yourself warned. See ya!"

And with that, she flash-stepped off.

xXx

"Hisagi-taicho!" Momo called as she approached the man's office, shifting the report under her arm.

She was greeted with the familiar sound of Matsumoto Rangiku's rich, loud, laughter.

"Good mood, Momo?" the woman called through the fusuma.

"Better than most," she replied truthfully, sliding open the door. "E-eh? Rangiku, wait, no—" Her protest was cut off as the woman swept her into a bone-crushing hug.

"Rangiku, I don't think she can breath," Hisagi said from somewhere behind the blonde.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry Momo!" Rangiku let go immediately, but stayed close.

Momo sucked in a lungful before smiling at her friends. "No, it's fine, I'm fine! Hisagi-sem – oops, I mean Hisagi-_taichō_, I have our report for you." She poked her head around Rangiku to see his reaction and giggled as the man almost melted in relief.

"You, at least, I can always count on," he said thankfully, taking the papers that she held out around Rangiku who seemed to be watching the exchange past her body with amusement. "Unlike _some_ people."

"Hey, don't look at me like that!" Rangiku protested. Momo smiled and pulled up a chair. These arguments had a way of growing to epic proportions and it was best to get out of the way before the furniture started flying. "I'm still on sick leave." She coughed, unconvincingly. "See? Very ill. Anyway, who's the one who pulled me away from my sick-bed—"

"Your fiancé."

Rangiku blithely ignored him. "And into his office for a super-secret talk, hmm? Wouldn't have been you Shuu-kun, would it?"

"What's this?" Momo asked, interested.

Hisagi waved a hand, but Momo caught the faint hint of a blush rising high behind the 69 tattoo. "Ran's over-exaggerating. She showed up here an hour ago and insisted I had a problem."

"Do you?"

Rangiku laughed again, throwing her head back in delight. "Boy, does he ever. Anyway, Shuuhei, Nanao-chan already agreed to do my work. Don't worry about it."

"Does she know that she agreed?"

"Of course not!"

Momo was frowning. "Rangiku, where's Maiko?" Karin had seemed pretty certain that the Kuchiki heir was with her father, but usually Rangiku didn't let her baby girl out of her sight.

The blonde woman looked suddenly disgusted. "Oh, pssht. Father-daughter bonding day or whatever. I hung around for a bit to see Byakuya screw up with the nappies, but would you believe he never did? I was _so_ disappointed."

Hisagi leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Che. You're just waiting for him to screw up, aren't you?"

"You bet. That man is irritatingly perfect in the most ridiculous things. Plus, if he messes up, I get to spend more time with my kid. So long as he doesn't mess anything important up, that is."

Momo shook her head at that irritating stab of pain as Rangiku rambled on about her daughter. The sharp-eyed woman caught it, of course, and frowned.

"What's wrong?" she mouthed.

Momo shook her head again. "Nothing."

"I can read lips," Hisagi announced.

Once again, Rangiku laughed as Momo flushed with embarrassment.

"Leave it alone," the Captain continued.

"Yes, taichō," she sang, saluting smartly, if not mockingly. Momo giggled as Hisagi rolled his eyes.

"Aren't you leaving yet?" he asked irritably. Hisagi always got irritable when the reports were due. Momo wouldn't go so far to say that it was more work than he could handle, but he definitely didn't need the extra stress.

"Hisagi-taichō?" came a soft voice from the door that Momo instantly recognized.

Izumi Ayana, vice-captain of the Ninth Division. She was a shy, soft-spoken girl with wavy hair the exact same shade as Sōsuke Aizen's, tied up in a high pony-tail. It wasn't her fault, but Momo had never been able to make herself spend time in the blue-eyed girl's company because of it.

"Ah, Ayana-san." Hisagi straightened in his chair, instantly making the switch from human to the Captain of the Ninth Division. "Do you have those papers I asked for?"

"The twenty-five-oh's sir? Right here." She gave Momo a nervous glance, Rangiku a terrified one and stepped promptly into the office to deliver the forms to her Captain before retreating to the doorframe again. "And, um…Matsumoto-fukutaichō? There's a Kuchiki Chiaki here to see you. She say's it's very important."

Knowing the Kuchiki Elder, the crotchety old woman had probably terrorized poor Izumi into passing on something that, by rights, she didn't actually have to. Momo glanced over at Rangiku and saw that the woman's face had tightened almost unrecognisably.

"Right," the usually vivacious blonde said quietly. "I, uh…I'd better go."

And instantly, she was all smiles again.

"See ya later, Shuuhei-_taiiiiii_cho!" she sang, dancing towards the door. Izumi squeaked a little and flattened herself against the wall. "If you want me to help out with that problem of yours, just drop me a note, alright? And Momo, look after yourself! Whatever _your_ problem is, don't hesitate to ask for advice if you need to!"

"I-I don't have a problem, Rangiku!" Momo stuttered after the woman's disappearing form. She sighed as she received no response.

"I-is there anything you need, H-Hisagi-taichō?" Izumi asked quietly, tripping over her words even worse than Momo had.

"Hmm? Oh, no." He gave her a gentle smile that looked surprisingly perfect on his scarred face, and the blue-eyed woman couldn't help but return it. "Working hours are over, Ayana-san. Feel free to leave whenever you want to now."

The vice-captain flushed and scuttled out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Hisagi slumped again, swiping a hand over his face in a gesture remarkably similar to Ichigo earlier that day.

"Ten to one Kuchiki's here about the trial," he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Momo replied softly. "Rangiku's compromising things. She doesn't want the men who actually kidnapped her to be executed, because they were lackeys. It's the family she's after, and she won't ask Kuchiki-taichō to back her up because she doesn't want to hurt him. And I'm almost certain he wouldn't really mind testifying, but he won't do anything until she tells him for fear of upsetting her. It's still a really very rocky relationship."

Hisagi raised an eyebrow. "Thinking of starting an advice column, Momo? I could probably set you up."

She laughed, a little self-consciously. "Oh, no! Rangiku does that well enough. She just has trouble when it comes to following her own advice, is all." She hesitated. "Hisagi-sem – oh _damn it!_ Sorry, taichō."

He shook his head. "Seriously, Momo, don't worry abut it. You can call me Shuuhei if you like." He said it in an off-hand manner, but there was an odd glint in his eye that Momo couldn't quite place. "What was it you were saying?"

His glossing over of the use of his name meant that she couldn't protest without seeming a little pushy, so she dropped it – for then. "Uh…well…I was justgoingtoaskwhatthatproblemwasandifIcouldhelp."

Hisagi blinked. "What?"

Momo took a breath. It didn't help. "Your problem, Hisagi-sempai." That was a nice enough compromise, she thought. "And if I…if I could help."

He stared at her a bit and then laughed. "Heh. That. Nah, don't worry about it, Momo, it'll sort itself out. In the meantime, though how're you?"

"Me? Oh I'm fine! Also am, always will be, y'know?" she laughed back, moving from side to side a little to emphasize her point.

He raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "And was that the lie, or was it the truth?"

"The truth!" she protested. And it was, really. She was fine. She wasn't great or fantastic or amazing, but Momo was never any of those things, so that didn't really matter. "Why does everyone always think I'm lying?"

"Because you do," he said simply, shrugging. He winced, presumably at the movement. "We all know you're doing it so that we don't worry about you, but that kind of defeats the purpose." He winced again, rotating his shoulder. "Shit…" he muttered under his breath.

"Sore?" Momo asked instantly, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject.

"Took a hit when we were on duty," he replied, rubbing it a little. "They couldn't heal it perfectly, otherwise I'd end up losing the feeling like Ran did. I think I'd almost prefer that."

"Don't say that!" It came out a little sharper than she'd intended, and she jerked her hands away from her stomach instantly. Hisagi's eyes said he noticed the movements, but he didn't say anything.

They sat in silence for a bit, Hisagi absently rubbing his shoulder.

"You know what you need?" Momo announced suddenly.

He looked amused. "What do I need, Momo?"

"Don't patronize me like that," she huffed. "I'm being serious."

"So am I, then."

She gave him a suspicious look and eventually decided he was telling the truth. "A good spar."

The eyebrows knitted this time. "Momo, I don't have the time—"

She darted forward and grabbed his arm. "Don't care. I'm taking action. Otherwise you'll end up like me, and no one wants that." She proceeded to drag him from her chair. "Hey! Where's your zanpakutō?"

A guilty look crossed his face as he involuntarily turned to the corner of the room. His zanpakutō was lying against the wall, covered in a thin layer of dust.

"I really haven't had time."

"No excuses!" she barked, slipping into teacher-mode. "Pick up that weapon _right now_ or I'll march you down to the training grounds without it!"

He sighed. "Yes, Momo."

A pause. Neither of them moved.

"Momo?"

"Why aren't you moving?"

"You have to let go of my arm first."

xXx

_All right! I've finally managed to stop laughing at Byakuya. I think. I think._

_Anyway! That bit of Momo right there at the end is the same Momo that organised Rangiku's intervention. Whne it comes to looking after others, like Rangiku, Momo changes. In her particular case, she becomes more forceful and outspoken._

_Hope you liked! Go read 319 _now_ if you haven't already done so!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Once again, I have to thank Philyra for designing Hisagi's _entire _zanpakutō_. _She is goddamn amazing. Although I do have to say that I added a tiny bit on to Momo's bankai, the activation, which you will see later on. Actually, I altered both a bit, but the general ideas were most definitely hers and I couldn't have done this chapter without them._

_Ah, sweet irony._

_So. Tora means tiger, and everything else shall be explained in the ficcage.__ All translations are done courtesy of Philyra's beta. Thank you, Philyra's beta._

_And you know who else is goddamn amazing? __**Cricketchick1990.**__ How I know this? Because I'm awesome, duh, and awesome sticks together. Lol, that's why you guys are here, innit? Anyway, if you're a fan of IchiRuki, she writes some fantastic stuff._

xXx

Working hours were over, but the Ninth's training grounds still buzzed with activity as Momo dragged their Captain out of his office.

"Watch out!" someone called. "Hinamori-fukutaichō's on a rampage!"

She laughed with them, almost as comfortable with Ninth as she was with her own Division. During her early years as Acting-Captain of the Fifth, she, Kira and Hisagi had spent a lot of time together, helping each other out and dealing with the betrayal and subsequent death of their Captains. As such, their Divisions had grown close, and like Sixth and Tenth, were frequently sent out on collaborative missions. Gone were the days where each Division was its own self-contained unit; they had learnt during the war that if they didn't work together, they'd die together.

"It's about time you got out here again, taichō!"

"Yeah, good work Hinamori-fukutaichō!"

"What did I do to make my Division so eager to see me pummelled into the ground?" Hisagi muttered under his breath.

"Hisagi-sempai, don't say that! You're a taichō!"

"Yeah, and you're taichō-class and I'm outta shape. Plus, Tora's pissed at me 'cause she hasn't had any exercise lately."

Momo had no sympathy for him in that area. "Well, that's your own fault, isn't it?" she announced primly, letting go of his hand as they started to mark out an area. Several shinigami broke off their own practice and wandered over to watch. Hisagi frowned as he drew his zanpakutō, obviously communing with the tiger-spirit.

_:__Ready to go, Tobiume?:_

_:Tora's really angry. I mean,__ really angry. It's a little creepy.:_

_:Come on, don't have that attitude!:_

_:You don't have to see her. She's damn scary when she hasn't had her exercise. She doesn't like being caged up.:_

_:Is she telling you all of this?"_

_:She's being kind of loud about it. I don't have much of a choice.:_

_:That loud?: _Momo asked in surprise.

_:Ear-splitting. If I had ears that is.: _He sighed._ :She's _yowling._ Do you think if we attack her, she might be quiet?:_

_:Let's try it and see.:_

"Hisagi-sempai!" she called. "Are you ready?"

The scarred Captain shook his head slightly and narrowed his eyes. "I'm always ready, Momo."

"Good." And she attacked.

He barely got Tora drawn in time, but he did manage it. Momo smiled at the surprise on his face and quickly changed direction, delivering a number of hard, heavy strokes. He was faster than her, but most shinigami at their level were. She'd learned not to make it a handicap, keeping the opponent busy with a series of inexorable strikes bearing down on them with a good helping of kido.

Hisagi grinned, warding her off. "You play dirty."

"In a real battle you'd be lucky to get even that warning. You said you were ready."

"Not a real battle," he pointed out. Their swords locked, and he pressed his advantage of height and weight. Her knees buckled.

"Shō!" she cried, not bothering with incantation or number. Being the No.1 Destructive spell, she hadn't needed to even cry that, but it was habit now. Hisagi was thrust away from her with an expulsion of kidō, far away enough for her to catch her breath before he flash-stepped back again.

Momo started to grin. She hadn't had this good a workout in _weeks_, what with the amount of paperwork her upcoming sojourn in the real world was causing. Hisagi smirked back before putting on a burst of speed and sliding under her guard.

_Oops._

She just barely managed to avoid having her shoulder sliced open, flash-stepping back and away, shaking out her hand that was numbing from the impact.

"Are we going for first blood here, Hisagi-sempai?" she called, taking a hurried step forward before she tripped outside of the marked area. She could hear the sounds of more Division members coming over to watch, most of them making bets on the outcome.

"Well we're sure as hell not fighting to the death," he answered, watching her face carefully.

Hisagi knew her too well. Due to her mastery in kidō, Momo could distort the air around her limbs so her opponent couldn't see the giveaway tension that appeared when she was about to attack. She'd always had trouble with her facial expressions, however, something that Hisagi knew well – after all, he'd been the one to clue her in on it back in the Academy.

This time would be different though.

Momo took a large flash-step forward, but Hisagi was out of her jump-reach. She cursed, heard the murmurs of surprise at the uncharacteristic action and hastily took another flash-step. But he'd seen her, and the element of surprise that she'd gained when her face _hadn't_ moved was lost.

A shriek of steel split the air as Tobiume scraped down Tora's edge to lock at the hilt once again.

"Been practicing?" Hisagi panted, sliding back a pace. He'd been able to block her, but Momo still had the superior force of a flash-step to back her up. He broke away first with a flash-step and she leapt back too before they met again with a crash of metal.

Lock.

"Of course."

Break away.

Lock.

Break away.

Lock.

Every time they met again, Momo lost a little bit of her advantage until Hisagi had her knees buckling once again.

Break away.

_:Owowowowow.: _This time it was Tora shearing down Tombiume's edge as Momo struggled to deflect the blue-hilted blade before it forced her to her knees.

"Hajike, Tobiume!" _Snap._

_:Oh, that's better: _her zanpakutō sighed as he expanded into shikai, tines jutting out and catching Tora on the downward stroke. There _was_ no incantation for the concentrated burst of reiatsu she forced through the tip of the sword and Hisagi's cursing as the resulting explosion threw him to the ground didn't bear repeating. Momo's control was so fine that a blast which would have ripped a hole in her opponents gut in the hands of a lesser kidō user was instead directed at the air in front of Hisagi, sending him flying but not permanently injuring him.

She started to laugh at the shocked look on his face.

"Shikai?"

"You didn't say we couldn't use it," she sang, fighting the urge to lean on her blade as she waited for him to stand. It tended to sink into the ground when she did that. "Are you bleeding?"

He shifted quickly, if stiffly, into a standing position and checked himself over. "Sorry, Momo. Looks like you're out of luck."

_:Tora's out for blood.: _Tobiume informed. _:Attacking them didn't make her any quieter. Do you think we should stop?:_

_:No, I don't think we should stop.:_ Momo just barely kept from pouting at her zanpakutō. _:Come on, where's that fighting spirit?:_

_:It drowned. In Tora's noise.:_

"Momo? We still going?"

"Hmm? Hisagi-sempai! You should have taken advantage of that."

He winced, and scratched his head. "Sorry. It's getting a bit hard to concentrate. Tora's…not happy with me." He held out his blade and looked at it coolly. "It's been a while since you had some proper exercise, I guess."

_:Owowowow! So loud…:_Tobiume moaned. _:And they're going into shikai, if you're interested. Tora's practically roaring in glee.:_

_:Thanks for the—:_

"Ooui ni suware," Hisagi intoned. _Sit upon the throne_. "Tora!"

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Hisagi's zanpakutō had a fondness for dramatics that, over the years, Momo had gotten used to. She shifted subtly, readying herself as the blue tattoo bisecting Hisagi's face stretched and darkened to black. Similar marks appeared over the man's body as Tora's hilt dissolved and coalesced into an ornate black gauntlet that reached his elbow and sharpened to a long point. Tora's blade, now completely white, extended from the gauntlet.

_Don'tblinkdon'tblinkdon'tblink…_

She blinked, and he was gone.

"Kyōmon!" she yelled, a little desperately, focussing the Mirror Door through Tobiume to increase its power and make it mobile. Tobiume sighed in her mind, bored at the easy task and did so.

Too slow. Hisagi's shikai tripled his agility, and he was damn fast to begin with. While Tobiume also helped to increase her speed when in shikai, he was nowhere near as fast as Tora.

Trees were like that, she thought in the back of her mind as the rest of her zeroed in on Hisagi's blade which had punctured the Mirror Door before it had been fully formed.

_Mirror Door: __Difficult to break from the outside, but relatively simple from the inside._ Momo was well acquainted with how easy it was to break the kidō spell from the inside and so, it seemed, was Hisagi because he shattered it right there and then. Momo caught Tora in the tines again, but in the split second it took her to react, he was gone again.

_:Hakufuku?:_ Tobiume suggested, becoming marginally more interested in the fight now his kidō had been dispelled.

_:Keep it inside the marked area.:_

_:Of course:_ the blade replied, sounding slightly offended. _:Say the word, I'll do the work. As usual.:_

_:Hey!: _But there was no time to be offended, even though the mental conversation had taken place in less than a second. Momo reversed her blade and thrust it into the ground with a loud cry of, "Hakufuku!"

White Crawl.

It was an innocuous sounding name that had a devastating effect. Had Hisagi been closer, he would have surely been knocked out; as it was, he was knocked off his feet once again by the shockwave that rolled outwards from Tobiume, absolutely destroying the area they'd marked out – and only that area. Momo's control in shikai was near absolute.

"Are you bleeding _now?_" she asked. Okay, so maybe she whined a bit. She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to pull out bankai when there were so many people watching. Then again, Saku Tobiume hadn't had a proper workout in over a year and she knew it was the same with Tora.

"Doesn't look like it," Hisagi growled. With the activation of his shikai, his voice had dropped just the tiniest bit lower.

She hesitated. Some people, she knew, didn't like displaying their bankai in public or outside of the battlefield and it had been so long since Hisagi had used his that she couldn't remember. "Do you…want to make this bigger?"

He raised an eyebrow, leaping to his feet with none of the stiffness he'd shown the last time she'd dumped him on the ground. "Bankai?"

There was a sudden outbreak of murmurs from the crowd. It was very seldom that a bankai-wielder pulled bankai on another one in a training session. _Very_ seldom; usually they simply fought ten on one with higher seated officers.

She smiled at him, relieved that he hadn't seemed overly offended by the notion. "Uh huh. I think both our zanpakutō could use the opportunity."

Hisagi winced.

_:Ow! Ow! Seriously, ow!: _Tobiume came to sudden life at what Momo presumed to be a particularly piercing agreement from Tora.

"Can you maintain a protection for them?" He jerked his head at the bystanders. The word had spread, it seemed, and Momo saw more than a few familiar faces out there from other Divisions. In fact—

_Ichigo?_

There he was, trademark scowl plastered across his face although that was probably more to do with the fact that Rukia had clambered up onto his shoulders than anything else. The need to win surged powerfully in her veins and Momo gave a soft laugh. "Hisagi, neither one of our bankai are particularly ostentatious. I think that if we just ask the people to step back from the marked out area, they should be safe."

A strange look of shock passed over his face, but disappeared almost immediately, replaced by a slow grin. "All right then." He raised his voice. "Oi! You lot, get away from the marked out area!"

"It's the part with all the broken ground!" Momo added helpfully.

Hisagi gave her a Look, whatever that meant, and then continued yelling. It seemed remarkably out of character for the usually soft-spoken man, but Momo wasn't good at raising her voice unless she was screaming at people she thought were traitors. "We're going bankai here, and I don't want to have to fill out any four-nineties if one of you dies on my Division!"

"It always comes back to the paperwork with you, Hisagi," Momo remarked, forgetting herself and leaning on Tobiume. He sunk a little further into the ground and she jumped in surprise.

That weird expression again, before the man frowned. "Have you ever had to fill out a four-ninety?"

"Um…no." She smiled.

"Then yes. It does always come back to the paperwork." He straightened, placing the palm of his bare left hand over the back of his right, stretching them out in front of him. "Are you ready?"

She pulled Tobiume from the ground and positioned his point at the exact same point where Aizen had stabbed her, almost twenty years ago now. "Of course."

Silence. It appeared that the crowd had stopped breathing, so intent were they on the two combatants.

"Tora, Kedamono no Joou." _Tiger, Queen of Beasts._

"Saku Tobiume." _Blossoming Flying Plum Tree._

"Bankai!" Coincidentally, they said it at the same time.

Momo thrust Tobiume into her abdomen as Tora's blade melted down, crawling over Hisagi's bare hand. There was a collective gasp from their audience, but Momo ignored it. She hadn't really stabbed herself, although she knew the crowd would be able to see the tip of Tobiume's blade sticking out of her back.

She had been terrified the first time she tried it, although the fact that she couldn't feel anything in that particular area had helped a great deal as Tobiume had instructed her on exactly what to do.

Of course, a zanpakutō could not be turned against its owner unless they wanted to die, but Momo's mental state had always been such that it was better to take no chances. Thus it was essential that Momo not attempt to stab herself before she uttered Tobiume's true name because the trick, of course, lay in his name. When she said it, the molecules of his blade and her abdomen separated infinitesimally, just enough that they would be able to slip by each other pleasantly without doing each other any harm.

Momo felt a smile washed over her face as her skin fused with her zanpakutō. It was the most fantastic experience, feeling _whole_ as Saku Tobiume, much as Tora had, melted down.

Hisagi had grown another spiked gauntlet, and both of them now extended to the rolled sleeves of his uniform. However, instead of a long blade protruding from the protective armour, three white steel claws spiked out from the knuckles of each hand, each a foot long. When he looked up to smirk at her, his eyes glinted blue and the tiger-stripes deepened.

Momo, on the other hand, had no blade. Saku Tobiume had bloomed indeed, covering her in a near skin-tight suit of armour. Because of the way he had fused with her body, the protective layer moved _with_ her and although there were miniscule breaks and overlaps where each piece intersected, the armour was as strong as Arrancar _hierro_, iron skin.. Twisted vines and flowers crawled over the surface, with shoots and leaves sprouting off every now and then. Despite having no colour, they were so lifelike, they appeared to be moving.

Saku Tobiume was the ultimate defence. And being the strongest kidō-based zanpakutō in the Seireitei, he needed no blade. The fusion of Hinamori Momo with her zanpakutō meant that unless annihilation was her goal, incantations were useless. Even the name of some techiniques had to be used sparingly, especially in a sparring situation.

In other words, Momo had a hell of a lot of power, and she wasn't sure if she was the right person to wield it.

xXx

_Stef says I can leave it there. So if you wanna blame someone for the cliffie, go see cricketchick1990. Stop off and read her fics on the way : )_

_Hi, this is Chapter In A Day. Some of you may not have met me before. Once in a blue moon, when Feilyn is feeling awesome, she will pull me out. She thought I should properly introduce myself, as it will be a long time before you see me again. Feilyn could, of course, pull me out tomorrow for Coming To Terms, but seeing as my cousin Almost A Whole Chapter In A Day visited yesterday in Reset: The Kushina Effect, Feilyn would rather play Playstation._


	4. Chapter 4

"C'mon, Momo

_Yeah baby! Chapter in a day :dances: And that's with Chapter in a day yesterday as well, and almost chapter in a day the day before. I dunno what's going on, but I'm liking it!_

_Actually, I do know what's going on. The avoidance of homework is going on. I'd say you're a bad influence, Nam, but I was doing this a long time before you, lol._

_Anyways! I hope you enjoy the chapter. It's epic. I'm writing a lot of epic lately._

xXx

"C'mon, Momo! Show the kitty-cat what Fifth can do!"

Momo flipped her visor up and turned to grin at her Captain. "Hai, taichō!"

"Kitty-cat?" Hisagi objected. Ichigo grinned

_:Don't let him do that. The Queen of Beasts is about to go ninja on us.:_

_:Ninja?:_

_:Oh, shut up.:_

_:You shut up!:_

Hisagi raised an eyebrow at her. "You ready?"

"You're not the only one communing with their zanpakutō, Hisagi. And you _should_ have taken advantage of that!" she berated.

He stretched, claws clicking. She flipped the visor back down, seeing the way his muscles bunched, ready to pounce. "Probably," he agreed, and then he was gone.

She hit the broken ground. _:Hakufuku again, Saku Tobiume.:_

_:Hai, hai.:_

The intense White Crawl swept out from her right hand, focussing itself through her gauntlet. She caught a brief glance of Hisagi leaping high into the air and grinned. She knew it wouldn't get him, but it had cost her almost no energy and she now knew where he was.

_:Arms!: _she cried inwardly to the spirit of her zanpkutō, but he'd already done it – diverting kidō to her arms and reinforcing the protective gear.

Claws crashed against armour and Momo grunted at the pressure. Hisagi had literally dropped on her out of the sky and with that kind of force it was almost definite he would have sliced through her armour had she not been prepared.

_:Sōkatsui!:_

Hisagi leapt back and sliced through the No. 33 Destructive spell, coming to an abrupt stop and launching back at her again.

The difficulty, Momo mused as she fended off Hisagi's wild blows, would be to actually make him bleed. After all, she no longer had a blade and she doubted she'd be able to get close enough for the edges of her armour to do anything.

She held firm against his onslaught, reinforcing her bankai even further so she had time and strength to think. So long as she stood firm, she would be all right, but the instant she stepped back she would be on broken ground with unstable footing and therefore unable to hold him off.

So that left the option of taking the battle to the air. She was nowhere near as skilled as Hisagi off the ground, and she would lose the advantage that destroying the marked out area had given her, but there wasn't much of a choice – she needed space to manoeuvre, and she could only get that in the air.

"Shō!" she cried, out loud to increase its power. Hisagi was taken by surprise and nearly thrust entirely outside of the marked-out area. Only the whirling of his arms and the digging of his claws into the torn earth stopped him from tumbling out. Momo had to stifle a giggle, concentrating as she was. "Hainawa!" _Crawling Rope_. She yelled that aloud as well so it would actually hold him for the amount of time she needed to launch herself into the air.

_:All right, let's try this again.:_

_:It's not going to work.:_

_:Don't be so pessimistic.: _"Kyōmon!"

Bankai added the speed to complete the spell that she hadn't had in shikai and by the time Hisagi had broken out of the Crawling Rope, Saku Tobiume could draw back the pure reiatsu he'd been expending in reinforcing the armour, giving Momo a much needed shot of energy.

_:Please, remember to keep it mobile this time.:_ There had been a particularly nasty incident in the real world a few years back when they'd tried this in shikai.

_:Oh, shut up.:_ the zanpakutō grumbled. _:That was one time, and I was in _shikai_.:_

_:Uh huh.:_

Of course, the downside to have this protection was the fact that she couldn't attack Hisagi without breaking the Mirror Door. But that was okay, because she needed the time to strategise; unlike Rangiku, she didn't have the ability to change tactics at a moments notice. Thankfully, she had a bankai to compensate for that.

Oddly enough, it appeared that Hisagi was also stopping to think. Or stopping to get yelled at by the Queen of Beasts, as Saku Tobiume suggested. It probably wasn't a good idea to let him catch his breath, but Momo didn't have much of a choice. She sat down in mid-air instead, carefully watching him as she ran through a list of kidō in her mind.

_:Oh crap. Stand up stand up stand up!:_

_:Wh—:_

"Ao Tsume." _Blue Claw._

Momo cursed, leaping to her feet. Her Mirror Door was strong, but it wasn't _that_ strong.

Four of Hisagi's claws, two from each gauntlet, detached themselves, glowing blue with his reiatsu as they hovered in midair. Controlled by the Queen of Beasts, they'd hunt her down and pin her to the ground if they could. Relentless, nothing could stop them unless Hisagi called them off.

_:I didn't think he'd use those!:_

_:Neither did he. Tora yelled him into it. Boy, do they need to get out more – she's almost out of control.:_

Momo dodged the claws spinning towards her, flash-stepped through the air.

_:Let me take control.:_ Saku Tobiume said suddenly.

_:Eh? But you hate—:_

_:Yeah, well, whatever. You wanted to impress your taichō, didn't you? Let me take over so you can do your thinking.:_

That was one of the secrets of Momo's bankai. Because of her fusion with Saku Tobiume, she could let the zanpakutō himself control her body while she retreated into her mind to plan. He wouldn't be able to use any kidō without her will behind it, but he was more than able to dodge and attacked physically. The flipside was that they would no longer be able to communicate.

He just didn't like it all that much. He was, after all, a tree.

_:Thank you, Saku Tobiume.:_

_:Shut up and get thinking.:_

She give up control gladly, mind working furiously as her body danced through the air, doing a fantastic job of avoiding Tora's Blue Claw.

The Mirror Door was useless now. She wondered briefly why she'd bothered, then tossed the thought aside; she had to think forward now, not back.

So. Drop the Mirror Door, but only when she was close enough to Hisagi to draw first blood for certain, otherwise he'd get her with his remaining claws.

Maybe. But she couldn't take the chance.

The thing about exchanging her sword for kido was that it was absolutely _useless_ in a spar to first blood where she couldn't kill anything. She could draw blood from Hisagi if she used the Great Seal or Black Coffin, but chances were (definite in the case of the former) that she'd end up killing him.

Vaguely, she was aware of Saku Tobiume executing a flawless, _totally unnecessary_ back-flip to escape Tora's Blue Claw.

_That's going to hurt tomorrow…_

She slapped herself across the mental face. _Come on! Think!_ Hisagi was content to let the Blue Claw do his work for him, but Momo knew that as soon as she moved to attack he'd be gone from her sight.

_So stop him from moving_.

But he'd move too fast to be caught in anything big, and something small wouldn't hold him!

Oh.

That was it.

She waited until Saku Tobiume was a reasonable distance from the Blue Claw before taking control again.

_:Are you all right?:_

_:Hn. Wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Got a plan?:_

_:Of course.:_

"Rikujōkōrō!" _Six Stave Light Prison. _It caught the Ninth Division Captain around the gut as Momo flash-stepped in dangerously close, dancing around the Blue Claw. _:Gochūtekkan!: _She didn't say it, not wanting to crush him.

_:Got it.:_

She released the Six Stave Light Prison, dodging the Blue Claw once again as five huge pillars pinned Hisagi to the ground.

Alighting on the broken ground, she grinned at him, triumphant. Well aware of the Blue Claw flying at her back, Momo ordered a surge of kidō there just as she levelled her forefinger at Hisagi.

"Byakurai." _White Lightning_. The spell flashed from her finger and Hisagi rolled his blue eyes as it burned a hole through his already injured shoulder – she didn't, after all, want to deprive him of his other arm.

Then those blue eyes widened and he started struggling to break away from his impossibly heavy restraints. "Tora!" he choked. "No – don't!"

_:Momo, get the hell out of the way! Tora's gone wild!:_

_:What do you—:_

There was an explosion of pain and then two more. The crowd roared, surging forward as Momo froze, feeling a horrific sense of déjà vu. She looked down, almost in slow motion, to see four sullenly glowing claws punched through her armour.

_Well isn't this fitting?_ she thought to herself as the feeling disappeared from her knees and she toppled to the ground.

She was expecting at least some sort of climactic thump, a jarring pain before she passed out, but it never came. Instead she found herself looking up into blue-usually-black eyes and realised she was not bleeding out on the ground but being cradled rather gently in Hisagi Shuuhei's arms.

"Damn, Hisagi, what the fuck happened?" an angry voice demanded.

Momo frowned. "T-taichō?"

The wounds really did hurt, except for the one in her abdomen. She nearly laughed at the irony.

"Tora took over," Hisagi replied quietly, voice shaking. "I don't – she just went out of control. I didn't mean—"

"Yeah, I'm sure you fucking didn't but it happened all the same. Give her here."

"Kurosaki—"

"Taichō…don't be mean…" Momo whispered. It hurt to breathe. That probably wasn't a good sign.

_:Saku Tobiume?:_

_:I told you to get out of the way.:_

_:You sure did. Could you—:_

_:I'm already doing it, idiot. And they're not life-threatening, Hisagi kept enough control for that at least.:_

_:Oh.:_

And he was, Momo realised, working to seal the wounds. It wasn't as good as healing, but it would have to do for now.

"Get those damn things out of her," Ichigo growled, but his voice had softened a little. Momo gasped, arching her back in pain as the claws were drawn from her body.

"Here." Momo felt herself being lifted into the air and passed into another pair of arms. "Take her to Fourth."

"Was what I was gonna do," Ichigo muttered, but the ill-will had disappeared from his voice. And then with a disorientating lurch, the world flashed out of sight.

Once thing, however, remained. Ichigo's face, knotted in a concerned scowl. Momo sighed, and smiled.

It wasn't such a bad thing to fall unconscious to.

xXx

Momo wasn't surprised in the slightest to find that she woke up, nor that the person sitting at her bedside was none other than Hitsugaya Tōshirō.

"They only let family in when you're asleep, of course," he murmured as she blinked, struggling to get used to the light. "I'm about as close as it gets."

Fourth made exceptions all the time, of course, but Momo wouldn't have been surprised to learn that Tōshirō had demanded it be enforced. He was remarkably protective of her at times like that.

She managed a small smile, groggy as she was from the painkillers. "How long've I been out?"

"Not sure. It's the next day if the helps."

"Oh no!" She made a sad attempt at bolting upright. "I have to get to work!"

Tōshirō gave her an unimpressed look. Or rather, he gave her what anyone else would call Death Glare Number One, but Momo saw as simply unimpressed.

Long exposure. Somehow, Rangiku didn't even notice them anymore.

"You're not going back to work, baka. Hisagi's helping Kurosaki out with Fifth's paperwork. He says sorry, incidentally. Hisagi, that is."

By the way Tōshirō's jaw clenched, Momo would _bet_ he said sorry. She sighed, settling back into the pillows. "You didn't threaten him, did you? It really wasn't his fault."

"He shouldn't have been using bankai if he couldn't control it."

"_Don't_ say that, Shirō-chan! I know you've got a feisty zanpakutō, but at least yours is all icy. Hisagi's _really_ powerful, but Tora needs constant exercise and he's so busy being a taichō with all that paperwork that he doesn't get the chance to and—"

"Breathe, Momo," the Tenth Division Captain advised.

Momo pouted at him, but complied before continuing. "And imagine if I hadn't been the one to drag him out? _I_ have Saku Tobiume, and even if he can't hold up to Ao Tsume, he does better than _skin and bone_ would. Did you know that nothing can stop that attack once it gets started?"

"So he shouldn't have used it."

"But Tora _made_ him." She sighed. He obviously wasn't getting it. "Tora's dangerous. It's in her _nature_ to be dangerous, she's the Queen of the Beasts and I knew that when I agreed to spar with him. I also knew that something like this could happen and that I was the best person to deal with it." She glared at her oldest friend. "I'm big enough to make my own decisions, Shirō-chan."

"Che." He looked out the window. "I know. You're getting fat."

"Shiro-chan!" she squawked, drawing a grin out from him.

"How're you feeling?" he asked after a moment's silence.

"Like I've been stabbed with three foot-long claws."

He frowned. "There were four."

Momo froze. "I – uh, yeah. Four. I meant four."

Tōshirō looked at her closely, then rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

_:Too close. How are you, Tobiume?:_

_:I'm a sword. Also a tree. You're the one who got beaten up.:_

She winced. _:It's more ripped up than beat up.:_

_:Hn. Oh, Tora says she's deeply sorry. In the most regal and stuck up manner imaginable.:_

Momo grinned. _:Is that exactly how she put it?:_

_:Don't be stupid. Tora is always regal, never stuck-up.:_

_:Of course. Well, tell her thank you for the apology and to let Hisagi know that it wasn't his fault. It was hers. And mine.:_

_:Uh huh. Would you like me to send flowers as well?:_

_:_I'm _the one who's sick.:_

"How do you do that?" Tōshirō asked, frowning again. Momo couldn't recall the wind ever changing when they were children, but then again it might have happened when her back was turned.

"Do what?"

"Commune with your zanpakutō so easily outside of battle? Even when he's not on your person."

She shrugged lopsidedly. One of Hisagi's claws had nailed her in the shoulder. What was it with shoulder wounds these days? "It's probably the fusion thing, Shirō-chan. We grew close for bankai, and then bankai made us even closer." She smiled again, eyes closing. The painkillers were making her sleepy. "It's nice. It's like we're truly one, you know?"

The room fell silent as he thought about that. She yawned, turning on her side despite the protestations of her wounds.

"Momo?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't call me Shiro-chan."

xXx

_Didja like? Lemme know. I hope you did enjoy it. See ya next chapter! Or, if you're reading Coming To Terms, I'll see you over there._


	5. Chapter 5

_If you haven't read the note in my profile, I am once again laptop-less. Which means, computer-less. I wrote this chapter on paper and have been typing it up in ten-minute intervals on the school computers. _That_, my friends, is dedication. _

_Lol. Coming To Terms will be my next chapter story update, but I've got one or three oneshots to write between them, and a maximum of three weeks before I get my laptop back. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later._

_Enjoy the chapter!_

xXx

The thing about being in hospital, Momo decided, was that it was incredibly _boring_. Of course people dropped by to see her throughout the day, but most were too busy to stay for long. Even Rangiku, who lived for any excuse to skive off work couldn't stay long – Maiko kicked up a fuss halfway through the visit and Yuki flash-stepped in three seconds later and literally stole her away.

"Did that kid just steal my baby?" Rangiku asked, flabbergasted.

Momo was trying very hard not to laugh, because laughing hurt like a bitch. "I think so," she managed.

Rangiku stared in disbelief at her empty arms. "Damn it!" And without so much as a goodbye, the woman flash-stepped out of the room.

No sooner than she had disappeared, Karin burst into the hospital room, looking frazzled.

"Momo, have you seen Yuki?"

"Seireitei soccer?" she asked.

"I don't even know. Did he pass through here? He was worried about you before, so I thought—"

"Oh, he passed through here all right." Momo smiled. "For about the three seconds it took to take Maiko and leave again."

Karin stared at Momo for a moment and then facepalmed.

"My nine-year-old son is a stalker," she moaned. "I _knew_ introducing him to Tōshirō was a bad idea."

"You don't mean that," Momo giggled. "Although…he really did follow you around for a while there, didn't he?"

The other woman dumped herself into Rangiku's recently vacated chair and loosened her braid, running a hand though the dark strands. "He's one of the most pig-headed men I've ever met, y'know? And I've met a lot of pig-headed men. Actually, I was worried for a bit there that I might have a brother complex, but Tōshirō at least has _some_ maturity."

"Oh, don't say that about your brother!" Momo protested. "He's perfectly mature."

Karin snorted, absently chewing on the end of a lock of hair. "Jeez, you sure do defend him a lot, Momo. Anyone would think you're in love with him."

A spike of fear stabbed her right in the gut, which was ironic. Momo would have thought it a throwaway comment if not for the careful look in her friend's eyes. She laughed despite the pain it caused from her wounds.

"Don't be silly, Karin-chan. Taicho's just that – my taichō."

Karin eyes were piercing as she started to re-braid her hair. "Momo. You looked after Tōshirō when he was going crazy, you helped my sister after she died and I know you're indispensable to my brother. And even if you hadn't done all of those things, you're like a sister to Tōshirō, which makes you a sister to me. If you've got a secret you need to share, I'm here for you."

Momo nearly laughed out loud again. _One_ secret? If only. She was starting to run out of fingers to count on.

But…Karin knew. Momo could see it in her eyes, she _knew_, and she didn't hate her?

It didn't make sense.

"It's fine, Karin-chan, really." She forced brightness into her voice, kicking the fact that someone now knew one of her secrets away into the deepest corner of her mind. This wouldn't change anything. It _wouldn't_. "Aren't you going to look for Yuki-kun?"

"Eh? Nah, Rangiku'll be after him for the next hour or so, if he's got Maiko. It's a game they're playing, I think. Yuki's winning, but Ran's about to badger Byakuya into joining and Yuki's afraid of Byakuya."

"I thought you said they get on well together?" It was a trick she'd learnt when Rangiku pushed too far – ask any mother about their child and they couldn't help but tell you, no matter what the subject had been before.

"Oh, they do – I swear that kid of mine says _less_ the older he gets – but I think Byakuya's starting to realise that Yuki's going to grow up one day – and so is Maiko."

"You don't _really _think they'll end up happily married, do you?"

Karin shrugged. "I have no idea. There's decades to go yet, but Ran's adamant on it, so I don't think they'll have much of a choice. Personally I reckon it's just Yuki being brotherly – he did the same thing with Satoshi and Sakura when Kaa-san found them, and he wouldn't leave Angel alone when he first showed up."

Momo frowned. "I didn't think Masaki-san and Isshin-san had brought any new orphans into the house."

"Hmm? They didn't. Where did you – oh, Angel. Yeah, previously known as Fish-Boy. He changes his name sometimes, you get used to it."

"Isn't it a little strange?"

"Momo, he's a Zaraki brat. We should be thankful that name changing is the strangest thing about him."

"I guess." Still, there was something about Fish-Boy – Angel now, apparently – that didn't sit right with Momo. Especially the way he treated Rangiku. The first time she had been introduced to Masaki's orphans, he'd been looking at the other vice-captain with such blatant dislike, it had been a little scary.

"Oh! Speaking of the brats, Hoshi said to say hello and that you were 'stupid for getting in the way of them claws'. And she wants you to go and see her as soon as possible. She was watching the fight."

Momo sat up a little straighter, smiling at the thought of the blue-eyed blonde child. "Hoshi? She's here in the Seireitei?"

"Not anymore. Kaa-san was just here for a day trip to visit Yuzu and Hoshi tagged along to see you. They left sometime last night, so she just gave me that message. She thinks your bankai's badass, by the way – she even more obsessed with kidō now."

"I wish I could teach her something, but I'm not authorised to instruct non-shinigami." Momo sighed. There was something irrepressibly hopeful about the girl and even more than that, something familiar.

"I think she'd probably stomach becoming one if it meant learning from you. You've really made an impression on her, y'know? She's been spending more time at the house, less time wandering and less time blowing things up. How did you do that, by the way?"

"I told her that if she stopped blowing things up, I'd make sure I'd be her teacher if she ever went to the Academy."

Karin frowned. "But you're not a teacher there."

Momo looked at her hands. "Yet."

"What's stopping you?"

"Even this long after the war, there's a huge shortage on strong shinigami. Kotetsu Kiyone could probably take over from me, but she'll never leave Ukitake-taicho and other then her, there's not really anyone with enough reiatsu to take over."

"There's me," she said flatly.

"There is you," Momo agreed. "But I know you don't want to be a shinigami, so it's all right."

"What about Hoshi?"

The vice-captain furrowed her brow a little. "I'll make it happen for Hoshi," she said finally. "Otori-san, our third-seat, could probably work as an interim fukutaichō until someone better can be found. If Hoshi says she wants to go to the Academy, I'll start training him."

Karin smiled softly, and it completely changed her face. Momo was struck at how much the woman had changed over years, from bratty pre-teen to hard adolescent to this strong woman. "Thanks Momo. Seriously. Hoshi was the first orphan Kaa-san picked up, before I even arrived, and she's spent most of her time looking after the other kids. It's nice that someone's finally looking after her."

Momo blushed. "Isn't that what your parents do?"

"'Course, but they have to look after all the kids."

"Oi."

Momo jerked at the new voice, instantly recognisable. "Taichō?"

He stepped into the room and flashed her a grin, before turning to his sister. "Got something for you, brat."

A small head popped up over Ichigo's shoulder. "Kaa-san?"

Karin raised an eyebrow and pulled her son off her brother's back. "Should I even ask?"

"Why do you always think the worst of me? Rangiku dumped him on me'n Hisagi 'bout ten minutes ago. Something about me being the only one who can keep up with him." Ichigo looked dubiously at his nephew. "I didn't think he was _that_ fast."

"Taichō, everyone's slow in comparison to you," Momo pointed out.

"Don't tell him that, Momo, his head doesn't need to be any bigger." Karin turned to the small boy in her arms. "Jeez, Yuki, how many times do I have to tell you? If you wanna steal something, go after this oaf." She jerked her head at her brother.

"Hey!"

Momo giggled.

"Or old goat face if you have to. Stealing Maiko is not an option, all right?"

Momo watched Yuki think this over, weighing it up in his two-year-old mentality. He was very serious about the whole affair, but Yuki was serious about everything.

"Hoshi?" he suggested.

"No, you may not steal Hoshi. She's too big for a start, and you just saw her yesterday."

Yuki frowned, and Momo just barely restrained a loud 'Aww!' at the adorable sight. "Maiko," he said stubbornly.

Ichigo laughed out loud at the frustrated look on Karin's face.

She glared at him. "Yeah you laugh now, but just imagine what _your_ kid's gonna be like. Y'know, with Rukia for a mother."

The Captain paled and Karin smirked triumphantly, balancing Yuki on her hip. "Uh-huh, that's what I thought." She lifted her free hand in farewell to Momo. "See ya, Momo." And with that, she thwapped her brother over the head and sailed from the room. Just before he disappeared, Yuki raised a small hand and waved his goodbye.

Momo thrust down the urge to squeal.

Ichigo was rubbing his head, grinning ruefully. "Should have expected that, I guess." He sat down in the seat next to Momo's bed. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I've been skewered by several foot-long claws." She laughed, then winced at the pain it caused. "It's not as bad as I thought it would be."

"Hn. I guess Saku Tobiume took care of that, huh?"

_:Of course I did.:_

_:Don't be fussy, Tobiume. He's complimenting you. Sort of.:_

_:U__h-huh.:_

"He's good like that," she replied, feeling ridiculously happy. She hadn't expected him to visit, knowing that to expect things was to be disappointed, but she _had_ hoped in spite of herself. "How did the paperwork go without me?"

"Momo, I think I can last a day without your help."

"Hisagi-sempai did it, didn't he." It wasn't a question.

"Every sheet," Ichigo confirmed. "Damn, I dunno how he did it. I forgot almost everything you taught me, but he did all of our work and managed to get a start on his. And his fukutaichō's even better? Sheesh."

"Hisagi-sempai's pretty amazing," Momo agreed. "But you know who's the best in the whole Seireitei?"

"Ise?"

"Taichō! You were meant to say me!" she protested, laughing again. _:Oh, ouch.: _She indulged briefly in that familiar warm glow she always got when he laughed – especially when he laughed at _her_ jokes – before kicking it away. "Seriously, though. Rangiku."

"You're joking."

Momo shook her head, smiling widely. "Nope! She ran Tenth for four years single-handedly and Tōshirō told me that just before the whole fiasco in the real world, she did a week's backlog and half of _his_ work in a morning."

"Then what the hell is Tōshirō always bitching about?"

"Considering it's a good day in Tenth when the backlog is only a week…"

"Ran hates honest work, eh?"

"On principle."

The was a quiet knock on the open door. "Am I interrupting?"

Both Momo and Ichigo turned to the new visitor. "Hisagi-sempai!"

Ichigo coughed. "I, uh, have to go. Somewhere. Now." He grinned, ruffling her hair. "I'll see you back tomorrow, yeah? We gotta get that trip to Karakura sorted."

Momo patted down her hair, smiling outwardly as she wrestled with the warm glow inside. "Hai, taichō!" He'd stopped referring to the town as home now, she'd noticed.

He left, and Hisagi stepped into the room, awkward. Unlike the rest of her visitors, he didn't take the seat next to her bed, choosing instead to stand.

"How are you?" she asked brightly.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Me? Oh no, I'm fine! Really, I'll be out of here tomorrow for sure." She tugged at the sleeve of her hospital gown, baring the shiny scar that was the only remnant of the puncture wound. "See?" Hisagi cursed and Momo blinked in surprise. "Sempai?"

"I'm sorry, Momo."

Being as close to the feeling as she was, Momo could hear the guilt clawing at his throat and frowned. "It wasn't your fault."

His eyes widened. "Momo, I couldn't control my own zanpakutō. I don't deserve to be a taichō."

"Don't you say that!" Momo flared. "There are plenty of people who don't deserve to be taichō, and that's why they're _not._ Do you think the Seireitei would stand for incompetents? It didn't before the war, and it certainly won't now."

"I could have killed you." His voice was strangely strangled, and like others could sense the danger signs in Momo, she knew exactly what he was doing now.

Guilt. It was all-consuming, drowning all of those other qualities that Hisagi prized so much – his seriousness, his intelligence, his maturity. Momo knew what that was like.

"Don't be silly, Hisagi." She pouted, doing her best impression of Rangiku. And like she knew how he felt, she knew how to draw him out of it. She hoped. "Why does nobody think I know what I'm doing? I've been a fukutaichō for decades and a kidō master for longer. _And_ I have bankai. I'm not completely defenceless. I knew Ao Tsume could hit me, I even prepared for it. Why do you think the claws went through so smooth, hmm?"

He was thinking now, she could she it on his face. "If you knew she could hit you, why did you try that finishing move?"

Momo blinked. "Because I wanted to win."

_:Jeez, that was insulting.:_

_:What?:_

_:Tora. She didn't have to be so _surprised_.:_

Was it really so surprising? Momo had worked herself to the bone for nineteen years, mind _and _body to ensure that she never ended up like she had been again_._ Before, she never would have pulled such a risky move, not unless Aizen had asked it of her. Now, however…

Well, a lot of things had changed.

"You heard that, didn't you?" Hisagi sighed. "Tora, I mean. I'm really sorry, Momo. She's just impossible at the moment."

Momo looked at him speculatively, thinking over what she knew of zanpakutō, Haineko in particular. "I don't think it's control that's your problem, Hisagi. Tora's Queen of the Beasts. Even Haineko'll defer to her, if she doesn't think she's being a brat. You can't _control _that kind of power, you know? I know that's how they teach it at the Academy, but the Academy's been wrong before. I know that Rangiku would have died if she hadn't had such an equal relationship with Haineko, and I only attained bankai after becoming totally one with Tobiume."

Hisagi looked thoughtful, and Momo congratulated herself on moving his attention away from his guilt.

"Tora…she's so angry, Momo. We got bankai because she was so desperate to be released, but we've never had the sort of…perfection that you and Tobiume have."

Momo could see in his eyes the pain it caused him, both to admit this to her and for it to be true. She was struck by just how awful it must be, to have a bankai that you couldn't understand, something that was meant to be the ultimate joining ruined.

_:You know, she doesn't get any quieter away from the battlefield.:_

_:Did you really think she would?:_

_:Hope springs eternal.:_

"You need to train together. Not just fighting, although that's a part of it too. I mean…communing with her. Meditating, even." A thought hit her like a bolt of lightning, as thoughts sometimes did with her. "Oh! Fifth's quarter in Karakura Town is coming up and I'm leading it, of course. We could make it a joint expedition and _you_ could lead it instead! It'd be fantastic."

"Momo, I couldn't—"

"No, I really didn't want to lead it in the first place, you know I'm no good at things like that."

Silence.

"It's…not that it's a bad idea, Momo, but I don't think the Division could handle—"

"Jeez, you're so careful, Shuuhei!"

They both twitched at the sound of Rangiku's voice from the door. She sauntered in, Maiko in her arms once again.

"How long were you listening?" Hisagi asked, resigned. There was a peculiar tone to his voice that Momo couldn't place, and Rangiku had an unnatural light in her eye as well.

"Long enough," the blonde retorted, shifting Maiko as the baby started to fuss. "Shuuhei, we're soldiers first. The sōtaichō needs to remember that sometimes." She paused, absently burping her baby girl. "You know what? I'll look after Ninth."

Momo narrowed her eyes. Rangiku never did something for nothing unless it was helping one of her friends out. "You're offering to _work?_"

"I'm _bored_," she whined. "But seriously, Shuu-kun. You need to get a hold on Tora, if only for _my_ sake." She winced. "Haineko was _so_ not impressed by that performance yesterday and she made it known."

There was something going on here, but Momo couldn't for the life of her figure it out. Hisagi, for some reason, was glaring at Rangiku.

"I guess I don't have a choice," he said flatly.

The new mother's eyes glowed with amusement. "I guess you don't." He gaze shifted to include Momo as well. "It's a date, then."

xXx

_Man, after staring at it for a week, you really get sick of looking at the damn thing. Don't try it, lol. I hope I managed to catch all the bad typos that come with copying something, but I probably didn't. More than that, I hope you liked the chapter :)_


	6. Chapter 6

_Okay, because I'm a bad person and know nothing about Japanese culture, Ichigo and Rukia's wedding will be western style. I could, of course, do research, but I would almost certainly end up screwing _something_ up. Messing with cultures is not something I'm about to toy around with._

_That said, this is not the actual wedding chapter (lots more to come before then), I just wanted to warn you. Anyway, people, I'm sure i've done this before, but **cricketchick1990!** Read _and _review her stuff. It's so worth it, and why yes I am beta-ing for her, lol. But seriously, she is fantastic, and awesome, and she also has spoilers for everything to do with the Lost And Found series, because she is the main reason I update so fast. Well, usually update so fast. Lol, it's taking me a while to get back into the groove._

_As always, I hope you enjoy!_

xXx

"Damn, Momo, I'm really sorry."

"Taicho?"

Ichigo was frowning down at a sheet of paper, which, from the code in the corner, looked to be a mission outline.

"I dunno what Yama-jii's thinking, giving this mission to Hisagi."

Momo blinked. "But taicho--"

"Nah, don't make excuses. Jeez, what the hell? Karakura Protection Missions have always been done by the separate Divisions. Does he think you can't handle it or something?"

"Well, maybe, but taicho--"

"Here, I'll talk to the old man about it, don't worry. It ain't fair that all the other fukutaicho get a chance at leading an expedition like this and then he takes it away from you."

"Taicho!"

A surprised silence, on both their parts.

"I - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. But taicho, Hisagi-sempai leading the expedition was _my_ idea."

Ichigo frowned. "The hell?

"Taicho…I don't need the experience. I think we all know I'm never going to become a taicho myself. Hisagi, on the other hand, could benefit from this a lot."

"So why doesn't he go with his Division instead?"

"Because me and Hisagi work better together than he and Izumi-fukutaicho do," she replied simply, sliding behind her desk and falling into her chair gingerly. Her wounds were still aching. "And someone has to stay behind with Ninth. Plus, me'n Tobiume are probably the closest zanpakuto and wielder in the Seireitei. If someone's going to teach him how to get along with Tora, I'm going to be the best person for it." She hoped she didn't sound too much like she was bragging, but it was true.

Momo was in a strange mood. The reaction of the people around her when she had gotten stabbed had been disheartening. Did they really not believe she could look out for herself?

Ichigo folded his arms and looked at her speculatively as she got started on the paperwork. "You really thought about this then, eh?"

"I do that sometimes." Her smile softened the bite to her words, but she felt the need to apologise anyway. "I'm sorry, taicho. I'm sort of grouchy at the moment. Coming off the pain meds, you know what that's like."

He opened his mouth to say something then frowned, closing it again and giving her the oddest look.

"Yeah, I do. Well, I'll sign the papers then."

"Hai, taicho." She signed her own name at the bottom of the form she'd been filling out.

"Momo?"

"Taicho?"

"_How_ do I sign the papers?"

She laughed.

xXx

"Momo?"

The woman looked up blearily from the paper she'd been staring blindly at for the past ten minutes. "Izuru-kun? What are you doing here?"

The other vice-captain stepped into the office. "You know, I could ask you the same question. You're working overtime again?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah…just some papers that need to be finished before I go to the physical world. Did you need help with something?"

"I need a reason to come and see you now?" he asked, sitting in the chair on the other side of her desk. "I wanted to visit you in hospital, but I got swamped by a bunch of two-fifties."

She frowned. "Everyone's been getting those lately. It's like no one's happy where they are. A's or B's?"

Izuru grimaced. "B's. I've had to turn down a quite a few, though. I can't afford to transfer some of these people out, but no one wants to be in a Division with no taicho."

"Why not?" Momo demanded, outraged on his behalf. "Third's a perfectly good Division! You're handling it a lot better than Iba."

"That's because Iba keeps letting his people go. Doesn't want to keep them somewhere they want to be. There's no respect in Seventh anymore."

Momo sighed. "Isn't the sotaicho negotiating with Urahara-san and Yoruichi-sama again?"

Izuru pulled a face. "Yeah. But if they agree, you just know Yoruichi-sama will be given Seventh to pull it into shape, which means I get stuck with Urahara." He shuddered. "Another guy with a creepy smile..."

"Come on, I'm sure it won't be that bad. You could always try for Bankai and become taicho yourself!" she suggested brightly.

He gave her a rueful smile. "Bankai…I don't think it's for me, Momo. And even if I did attain bankai, I don't think I'd be a very good taicho. We all know I'm not forceful enough."

"Izuru-kun, you're basically doing the job now!"

"And everyone's leaving."

She glared at him. "Izuru, do you have any idea how irritating it is, listening to you blaming everything on yourself?"

He blinked at her in surprise. "Me?"

Confused, the glare slipped into a frown. "What do you…oh." She frowned further. "I do it as well, don't I?"

They looked at each other, and started to laugh. It was rueful laughter, a little sad at how they had both turned out, but it was laughter nonetheless.

The door to the office burst open and Rukia barrelled in. "Momo!"

The look on her face was nothing short of pissed off, and the first thought that leapt into Momo's head was _She knows._

Heart in her throat, she shoved it down and instead summed up a quizzical look for her Captain's fiancé. "Rukia?"

"You - you're--" The small woman took several deep breaths before noticing that Izuru was in the room. "Oh, hi Izuru. You mind giving me'n Momo a some time?"

_No! No, don't go! Save me!_

He gave Rukia a nervous smile, completely oblivious to Momo's silent pleading. "Of course, Kuchiki-fukutaicho." He stood. "I'll try to see you before you leave for the real world, Momo. I'm glad you're all right."

She smiled at him, first instinct to reassure even when she wanted to tie him to the chair and make him stay. Her entire body was buzzed with fear, a phantom feeling even tingling in her abdomen.

Izuru left.

"Jeez, he's so formal," Rukia complained before turning back to Momo. "Anyway. What the hell is this?" she exploded suddenly. Momo flinched as the other vice captain waved her hand in the air so fast that it took her a second to realise there was a piece of paper in it.

"I - I don't know," she stuttered. "I c-can't see it, Rukia."

The paper was promptly slammed down onto the table and Momo's brain abruptly smacked into a brick wall of confusion. It was the mission outline for her upcoming trip to the real world, Ichigo's authorisation scrawled in the bottom right corner.

"Rukia, what--"

"The dates! The dates, Momo! You're spending a whole freaking quarter in Karakura Town, and right _smack bang_ in the middle of the quarter is my wedding!"

Maybe she was getting to it in a round about sort of way? Drawing out the torture so to speak, although Momo hadn't thought Rukia would have the patience - or nature - to do something so cruel. "I-I don't--"

Rukia had managed to work herself into a rage by this stage. "And how can I have my _wedding_ when a member of the wedding _party_ isn't there to be _in _it!" she finished, eyes blazing.

Momo's brain did a one-eighty and ran headlong into another one of those walls. "What?"

Rukia blinked.

"Bridesmaid, Momo," she said slowly. "You're one of them." A frown. "I asked you, right? I'm sure I did."

Momo, who had been sitting ramrod-straight, sank back into her chair. "No," she said faintly. "No, you didn't, actually."

Silence.

"_Damnit_. Now I know why the idiot was trying to interrupt me." She furrowed her brow. "I probably shouldn't have hit him so hard."

"I - I…_what?_ Why would you want _me_ as one of your bridesmaids?"

Rukia blinked. "Because you're a friend. A good friend."

"B-but…I'm…"

"You're what?"

Momo strangled a hysterical laugh. _In love with the groom?_ "Not bridesmaid material," she gave as an absent replacement.

"Whadya mean? There's no such thing as bridesmaid _material. _Except for being a good friend of the bride." Rukia gave Momo a Look. "This isn't one of those guilt things, is it?"

_Oh god, you wouldn't believe._ "No! I just…surely you have better friends than me?"

The other woman gave disgusted sigh and threw herself into the chair Izuru had just vacated. "Guilt thing," she concluded to the air. "Momo, you might not have noticed, but you are, in fact, one of my _best _friends."

Well. Momo had sort of thought of Rukia that way, but she'd never expected the woman to feel the same. "Well…" she started lamely. "I guess I…um…"

There was another phantom feeling in her gut, but this one was warm with fuzzy edges.

"Here, lemme explain it to you. Ichigo has his best man - or woman in this case, Tatsuki's doing it - and three groomsmen. Uryuu, Chad and Toshiro. Ukitake-taicho's performing the ceremony and hopefully Nii-sma will agree to give me away." She wrinkled her nose up at that. "I hate that. It's so goddamn sexist, but…well, I really want him to do it. So whatever. I have a maid of honour - Orihime - and three bridesmaids. Rangiku, Kiyone, and you." She smiled. "I really want you to be a part of this Momo. I guess I'd better ask before I go off at you for not being there though."

Momo opened her mouth to reply. "I - I can't."

And she couldn't.

Of course she couldn't? What kind of woman would go to a close friend's, a _best_ friend's wedding, be a part of the ceremony, when they were in love with the groom? What kind of _person_ would do that?

Momo wasn't sure, but she knew she wasn't going to be that person.

Rukia glared. "Why _not_?"

She scrabbled around for an excuse. "I - work! This trip, Rukia, you're exactly right. If it wasn't so important…but there's Hisagi-taicho and I have to help him and--" And she was really messing this up. "--and, and--"

Rukia pierced her with a solemn look from those huge violet eyes.

"This is about Ichigo, isn't it."

Fear.

Horror.

And _shame_. It ripped through her body like something she was without adequate simile for.

Rukia _knew._

"I-I-I--" She started to hyperventilate. "OhRukia, I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry, Ididn'tmeanto, IswearIswear, Ididn't--"

Rukia slapped her across the face.

_I deserved that._

She stared at the woman.

"Jeez. I thought that shit only worked in manga. You breathing all right now?"

She nodded dumbly.

"Right. I'm gonna say this slowly, but you can ask me to repeat it if you have to. You're sort of unfocussed right now, so maybe you should be looking at my lips. Oh, and for the love of all things holy, don't interrupt me."

Momo did as she was told. Her brain, it appeared, had been completely bricked off behind those walls of confusion.

Rukia's lips moved again. "I - know - you - love - him."

Momo died a little inside.

"But really. You don't think I'm used to people falling in love with him by now? Orihime was only the start, let me tell you. You weren't the first and you sure as hell won't be the last. _I _know you were never going to do anything about it. _You _know you were never going to do anything about it. You're still one of my best friends, and I really do want you in my wedding party."

Momo licked her lips. "But…I betrayed you," she croaked.

Rukia laughed. "Momo, that's like saying I betrayed you because I want to be fukutaicho of Fifth. You - you love Ichigo. Or you think you do - hey, don't give me that look, I'm the one who's done this before." She squinted up at the ceiling. "People love the idea of the idiot. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt like a bitch or anything like that, being in love, but if you were in a relationship with him? Yeah, things'd probably change real quick. It sure isnt' all it's cracked up to be. Orihime figured that out, and fell in love with Uryuu. Look how they turned out. Tatsuki? Huge crush on him before the war. I think Isane fell for him about a decade ago, and she's long over that. Everyone falls in love with him. It's like The Stage for lost souls or something. Everyone loves the _idea_ of my brother, but ask Rangiku what it's like being in a relationship with him. Same with the idiot"

Momo was starting to feel more than a little silly. Still guilty, horrendously guilty, but…

Silly.

"How did you know?" she asked softly, drawing circles with her fingertip on the wood.

"Jeez, Momo. I always know." Rukia flashed her a grin. "I've been through it too, remember?" She leaned forward on her elbows. "So, whadya say. Bridesmaid?"

She lowered her eyes. "I--"

"Here, I'll give you reasons. Other than you being a close friend that is. You've helped the idiot way more than he deserves. You looked after Yuzu, you watch out for Yuki, you beat the crap outta the idiot and set things in motion for Toshiro, Karin, Rangiku, Byakuya and a whole host of other people to be happy. You're a good person. And a better friend. And I'm still trying to figure out how the hell you can't see all that. Now for crying out loud, say _yes._"

She wanted to ask for reassurance and more reassurance, but she had the feeling that Rukia would probably hit her again. "I really would…love to be your bridesmaid, Rukia."

Rukia flashed her a wide grin, eyes sparkling. "Great! Fanastic. Now…" She drew in a deep breath and slammed her fists down on the table. "_HOW THE HELL DO I HAVE MY WEDDING WHEN ONE OF THE BRIDESMAIDS IS GOING TO BE IN KARAKURA TOWN?_"

xXx

_Hehehe…_

_This scene was going to come in later, but then I realised a whole host of things got in the way of that, so the story was rearranged around it and then things all slid in seamlessly. Hope I gave you guys a fright! And if I didn't, I hope you at least enjoyed it._


	7. Chapter 7

_I am not describing an echo again. I refuse. Point blank. Also, hi!_

_Right, I need to know how many of you out there would read an epic Naruto/Bleach crossover that melded both plotlines together in the Bleach world. It would be a collab between myself and __**bellzooks**__ and I'd like to get an idea on how interested you guys would be in it._

xXx

"Momo-san! Momo-san! Ya came, Momo-san!"

Momo laughed as Hoshi barrelled into her, the small girl throwing her arms around her. "Hoshi-chan! I can't breathe!"

"Don't care," the blonde mumbled burying her face in her chest. "Ya were so _stupid_, ya know that righ'?"

"I sure do, Hoshi-chan." She breathed in deep, taking comfort in the earthy smell that Hoshi exuded. She smelled like any child should - soap that had been covered up with copious amounts of dirt.

"You stayin' the night?"

"I'm sorry, Hoshi-chan, but I've got duty in the real world for the next few months. I just wanted to stop in and see you before I left."

"'S that why ya got the man with ya?"

Momo glanced over her shoulder at Hisagi, who was standing out in the courtyard of Masaki and Isshin's house looking ridiculously out of place. "Hisagi, come here," she demanded, smiling widely. He gave her a wry smile and stepped forward obligingly. "Hoshi-chan, this is Shuuhei Hisagi. He was my sempai at the Academy and now he's taicho of the Ninth Division."

Hoshi squinted suspiciously up at the man and didn't say anything until she saw the tattoo on the side of his face. "Sixty-nine?" she asked, respect evident in her voice. "Ya from sixty-nine?"

A brief pause. "No."

Momo gaped openly, then hit him on the shoulder. "You're _not_? Why didn't you tell me? You're not a pervert, are you?"

Hisagi blushed. "It's…a really long story."

Hoshi was glaring at him. "Where ya from, then?"

"I'm not sure. Somewhere in the Rukongai."

Electric blue eyes widened. "Ya don't know yer _District?_"

Momo giggled at the Captain's solemn look. "I'm afraid not."

"Jeez, how's a guy like that get ta be a taicho?" The little girl folded her arms over her chest and appeared to think about something before nodding decisively. "Right then. Ya need someone ta look after ya," she declared, stomping over to him and grabbing his hand.

"Are you offering?"

"Well who the hell else is gonna do it?"

"Hoshi! Language!" Momo scolded. The girl flashed her a summer-bright grin.

"Is someone going to look after Momo?" Hisagi enquired seriously.

"Che. Don't be stupid. Momo-san can look out for herself."

"Thank you!" Momo exclaimed, grinning at Hisagi. "See, Hisagi? Hoshi knows I'm capable."

"Yeah, an' I'm smarter'n any shingami!" the girl announced, dragging Hisagi towards the house. "C'mon, Hisagi-san. First thing I'ma show you is foragin'. Masaki's kitchen's good for that."

Momo frowned as she followed Hoshi and Hisagi, noting the odd silence of a house that was usually bustling with people. "Hoshi-chan, where is everyone?"

"What? Ah, guy came through one of those gate-things just before. Weird hat. Anyway, Satoshi'n Sakura whined and whined til they said they was gonna go for a spar to show 'em what shingami fight like. Seein' as they ain't got no rei-a-tsu ta be shinigami. Made a picnic outta it or somthin'."

"Why didn't you go?"

"'Cos I knew you was leaving today, Momo-san. Thought ya might come'n see me, and ya did." Hoshi beamed. "Masaki'n Isshin know I can look after myself, and 's only for a few hours anyway." The girl deposited Hisagi in a dining room chair and gestured for Momo to sit down opposite him. "Hold up, I'll just go get some grub from the kitchen. Don't hurt yourselves or nothin' while I'm gone, 'kay?"

"We'll be careful," Hisagi assured her.

She shot them a warning look, then raced out of the dining room.

"She's cute," Hisagi said.

Momo smiled happily. "Isn't she? I don't get to see her as often as I'd like, but that makes the times I do see her more special." It had been a good idea, going to see Hoshi before she left for the real world. Her mind, fried by her conversation with Rukia a few days before, was settled now as opposed to running around in circles.

"How did you meet her?"

Momo blinked. "Surely you've heard Shiro-chan and Karin's wonder-story?"

"I didn't catch the details."

"Paperwork?"

"It never ends."

"Oh. Well, you know Karin was that massive echo that Rangiku investigated, and that's how she regained her memories? Well, Shiro-chan helped her remember the rest, but it turned out that she had actually been living with Masaki since she died and Masaki knew because she was one of those souls who remember their past life." Momo paused for air. "And Masaki has been looking after children in the higher districts since she arrived here, apparently. Orphans. Karin didn't move out of the house for a few months, so I came to visit her and I met Hoshi."

"And fell in love?"

"Don't poke fun," Momo objected.

A pause. "I wasn't. Not really."

"Oh."

Silence.

"Damn it, they took all the good stuff!" Hoshi cried from the kitchen.

"Hoshi!" Momo called. "_Language!_"

"Sorry!" The blonde girl stumbled back into the room with an armful of food that Momo rushed forward to relieve her from. Hoshi scratched her head and grimaced. "Jeez, how much food do they need for a picnic? Angel eats like one of them boars the idiot from First rides through 'ere sometimes, but this's just stupid."

Momo and Hisagi jumped suddenly at the sound of a distant explosion. Hoshi, on the other hand, crowed gleefully and ran to the nearest window.

"Oh, wow! Check that out, freakin' awesome! You can see the smoke from over 'ere!"

Hisagi looked a little shell-shocked as Momo stood, hands on hips. "Hoshi-chan, what did I say about blowing stuff up?"

A sheepish look crossed the blonde girl's face. "Not ta do it?"

"Exactly."

Hoshi looked suddenly worried. "I'm real sorry, Momo-san! I didn't mean ta do it…well, I sorta did, but 's the last time, promise. Just wanted ta go out with a bang, y'know?"

Momo frowned, a little worried. "Go out? Where are you going, Hoshi-chan?"

Uncharacteristically, Hoshi wouldn't meet her eyes.

"What is it, Hoshi-chan?"

"I, uh…wasthinkingaboutbecomingashinigami," the small girl rushed out, blushing a little.

Momo blinked, arms falling from her hips. From the table, Hisagi looked on interestedly. "_Really?_"

"Well, yeah. Can't blow stuff up forever, right?" Fire was evident in those bright blue eyes as they lifted from the ground to gaze fiercely at Momo. "And I'ma show them Academy teachers that a Rukongai brat all the way from District Eighty can be a proper shingami. Like, go through school 'n everything."

"But I said I'd teach you," Momo blurted. "I mean, I'd still be a teacher. But I know people from the Rukongai make just as good shingami as people from the Seireitei."

It was Hoshi's turn to blink. "E-eh? You was _serious?_"

"Of course I was, Hoshi-chan.'

"B-but you're a fukutaicho! Momo-san, you ain't gonna give something' like that up for _me_."

Hisagi's face was unreadable as he looked at her. Of course, his face was usually quite passive, but there was an _intentness_ to the unreadability that confused Momo a little.

She wasn't making sense, even to herself.

She turned back to Hoshi. "Hoshi-chan, I've wanted to teach for a long time. I should be thanking you for giving me a reason." She thought about it. "You'd have to wait a while though. I have this mission and then there'd be training and - oof!" The breath left her body in one large expulsion of air as Hoshi crashed into her midsection.

Momo smiled. She couldn't feel most of the hug, but that hardly mattered.

"I coulda done it without ya," Hoshi mumbled into her chest, defending her pride. "I coulda. But…"

"You'd rather not?"

"Yeah."

Momo wrapped her arms around Hoshi's shoulders and hugged her back. "I can understand that."

xXx

"Momo--"

"I know, Hisagi," she interrupted tiredly, looking out to the Seireitei as they flash-stepped back through the Rukongai. "The Gotei Thirteen can't afford to lose me. I know."

Silence.

"That's not exactly what I was going to ask."

She glanced at him in surprise. "You're not going to lecture me?" _People are always lecturing me._

He looked amused. "Me?"

"Hisagi, if there's one thing you're famous for, it's your lectures."

"Great." She giggled at his dry tone. "Just what I always wanted to be known for." He paused. "Momo, it's not a question of whether or not the Gotei Thirteen can afford to lose you - although it really can't."

Momo frowned.

"Can you afford to lose the Gotei?"

She stumbled between one flash-step and the next and would have tumbled off the roof she'd been on if not for Hisagi grabbing her arm and pulling her back. She over-compensated and tripped again.

Momo looked up at her friend in surprise. His arms had looped around her waist and there was an odd look on his face.

She laughed. "I'm such a klutz!" she exclaimed, untangling herself. "Sorry, Hisagi. And thank you."

The look on his face was strangely intent. "I was hardly going to let you fall."

The started to flash-step again, Hisagi very kindly holding himself back so Momo could keep up. He didn't press his question, but she thought about it nonetheless.

The Gotei Thirteen was really all she knew, her time with Toshiro and the old lady so far away as to be almost non-existent. After Aizen's betrayal and her subsequent insanity, she had taken comfort in the structure of the Gotei to distract herself from her own betrayal and the dreadful knowledge that weighed on her mind.

Now, however, she felt less and less a part of that structure, less and less a vice-captain. The work was good to keep her busy, but after being in charge of Fifth for so long, it wasn't fulfilling like it had once been. And she had never been comfortable as Acting Captain, knowing that however well she lead Fifth, she was doing it on false pretences.

No matter how you turned it, Momo should have been dead.

She wasn't being depressive or even guilt-stricken. It was the basic truth. If it weren't for Rangiku, either by execution or suicide, Momo would have died after the war. So she owed it to rangiku to live, and she owed it to the Gotei to serve in reparation for her treachery, even if the Goeti knew nothing about it.

The events of the past week or so had opened her eyes a little to how people saw her, and how she in turn saw people. Now…slowly, Momo was starting to wonder what it was she owed to herself.

"Have you…have you ever wanted something so badly you feel it right down to the bone, but never had the courage to go after it?" she asked her friend. "Shuuhei?"

He gave a short laugh and she jerked her head to him in surprise.

"Yes, Momo," he replied after a beat. "I know exactly what you mean."

There was an odd pain in his voice that she couldn't quite place. She would have thought he was thinking of his old Captain, but his tone was lacking the bitterness it usually held.

"I want to change," she said quietly. "I think I've wanted to change for the longest time now, but I haven't had the courage. Hoshi…she doesn't give me that courage, but she makes me want to go after it myself."

_I think…I think I'm finally done paying for that sin._

They ran in silence for a while.

"You've never had someone to fight for, have you Momo?" Shuuhei asked.

The words hit her like a punch to the gut. Ironic. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

_Aizen_.

But had she really been fighting for him? Not in the way Shuuhei meant, to nurture. To protect.

"No," she said finally. "I guess not. What about you?"

"I thought so once," he replied after a brief pause. "Turns out I was only fighting for a thing. Things don't really care whether or not you're fighting for them."

There was an odd hint to his voice that took her a moment to place.

"What about now?"

He seemed startled by the question, pausing once more before flashing her a soft smile that made her breath catch in her throat. "Yes. I do have someone to fight for."

She was too bewildered by the reaction that smile had caused to ask who. Momo had never seen Shuuhei smile like that before.

She decided she'd like to meet the person who inspired him to wear that expression, but thought it would be too rude to ask.

xXx

_Right! Here's chapter seven, before Coming To Terms or Reset. I had so, so much fun writing this chapter. Seriously. So this time, not only am I hoping you enjoyed, I'm hoping you'll review to tell me. Or if you didn't enjoy, review and tell me that too. But I really do hope you enjoyed_


	8. Chapter 8

_I'm ba-ack._

_Not that I was really gone for all that long, in the grand scheme of things. You wouldn't have wanted to read anything I was producing a week or so ago anyway. It was all death and doom._

_Now, what is going on here, people? I pimp the amazing __**cricketchick1990 **__like the fine whore she is, and nobody checks her out? I'm wasting time and money here, ladies and gentlemen (are there gentlemen out there, incidentally?). Well, perhaps not money. But fic, definitely. It's courtesy of her that a massive 10 chapter or more IchiRuki fic will be written for the L&F series, and no one appreciates her._

_Right, I'll leave it at that. On to the chapter!_

xXx

Momo flashed-stepped through the air above her specialized kido troops , shouting orders. Out to her left, Shuuhei did the same with the rest of the Karakura Guard.

"Right, the gate's open." Rukia's voice buzzed through her earpiece. "Just gotta wait for it to stabilise, then - hey!" Momo blinked at the static and then the muffled, "Rangiku, give that _back_!"

"Momo!" Rangiku sang. She could just imagine the blonde vice-captain holding the headset out of Rukia's reach. "Have fun, you hear me? None of this 'I'm working' nonsense, the real world is there to exploit. Say hello to Orihime-chan for me as well, would you? Oh, and bring me back some of her cooking!"

Momo wrinkled her nose. She'd heard stories about Ishida Orihime's cooking.

"Rangiku," Shuuhei's voice crackled over. "You should have told her this before now. Go _away_."

"So cruel, Shuu-kun!" the woman laughed. Nonetheless, Momo heard the sound of the headset whistling through the air and the crunch as Rukia caught it.

"Honestly," the other vice-captain muttered. "Anyway, before you leave - remember, you're coming back again in two weeks and then two weeks again for fittings, and the wedding is in a month and a half."

"Rukia!" Momo laughed. "I'm hardly about to forget it!"

There was a slight pause as she realised how her words could be misconstrued, and Rukia misconstrued them.

"Momo…"

"I didn't mean it that way, Rukia," she said softly, and was surprised to find that she really hadn't. In fact, as she started to reassure her friend of this, she realised that she wasn't forcing the happy note into her voice for once, that the smile on her face wasn't fake. "I'm really looking forward to it."

It wasn't exactly the truth. But it wasn't a lie either.

"You ready to go, Momo?" Shuuhei's voice broke the silence and Momo nearly fell out of the air in shock.

"H-hai!" A tingle of fear worked its way up her fingers which seemed to be loosening on her secrets, one by one. _How much did he hear?_ "I'll see you in two weeks, Rukia!"

"If you're not here, she'll kill you!" Rangiku's voice echoed from the background.

"Oh, shut up Rangiku. I won't kill her, I'd be out a bridesmaid. I'll just maim her a little."

"There will be no maiming," Shuuhei interjected. "I'll get her back to you on time, Kuchiki, don't worry about it. Is everything stabilised?"

"You're good to go, Hisagi-taicho, just be sure to keep them in line. The gate's not quite as big as it could be this time." It went unspoken that Captain Ukitake was ill again.

"Right. Thanks." And then he cut out, ordering the troops through the gate five abreast. Momo took up the rear with her kido users, ordering them in four abreast so Ukitake could relax a little.

The tingling spread throughout her body, but it wasn't fear now. It was _anticipation_. The fight with Shuuhei had roused something in her she'd been trying to suppress since Ichigo took over Fifth and while she wouldn't like to have been leading the expedition, she was definitely glad she was a part of it.

_:Feels good, huh?:_

_:I didn't realise…I didn't think I'd _miss _it so much.:_

_:Stupid.:_

_:Hey! Don't be mean.:_

_:Well it's the truth: _Tobiume grumbled. _:Honestly. You're a shingami, and you're a commander. What's not to miss about being in the field?:_

Absentmindedly, she yelled someone back into line. _:I'm no commander.:_

_:Tell that to the guy falling over himself to follow your orders.:_

"How are the activity readings?" Momo asked the shingami monitoring their progress back in the Seireitei

"Normal, Hinamori-fukutaicho," the man replied, sounding vaguely surprised. "It looks like you might get through without issue for once."

The main objective of the Karakura Guard was to protect the most spiritually rich area in the physical world. Ironically, the presence of such a large amount of reiatsu tended to attract the Hollows they were trying to repel.

Momo switched the frequency back to Shuuhei. "No problems, Shuuhei," she crackled over.

"Getting excited?" he enquired quietly.

"It's been so long since I was in the real world," she replied into the mouthpiece. "Well, there was that time with Rangiku, but I wasn't exactly in the position to take in my surroundings." She stretched in midair and smiled. "And it'll be good to catch up with Orihime-chan. I haven't met her children yet."

"Orihime-san has kids?" The hint of surprise in the man's quiet voice was obvious.

"Mm-hmm. Twins, a boy and a girl. Sora and Ryuu. They're about ten, I think." Momo suddenly remembered something Orihime had told her about her twins last time they'd spoken. "They don't know anything about the war though, so be careful not to mention it."

She could almost feel Shuuhei's frown through the earpiece. "They'd be Quincy, wouldn't they?"

"The girl is. They know all about our world, but Orihime-chan and Uryu-san didn't want them growing up with the burden of the war." She shivered slightly, looking around at the dark, dank halfway-world they were running through.

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it," Shuuhei quoted softly.

Momo stiffened, and then frowned, slowly relaxing her muscles as she continued to run through the Dagai. "You don't think those children deserve to grow up without the weight of a war on their shoulders?" Momo demanded.

A brief pause. "If they weren't involved in our world, then no. Of course they should grow up free from that."

"But they are. Involved in this world."

Shuuhei sighed. "You know as well as anyone else that Soul Society isn't a place for children, but if they're getting involved--"

"The destruction of innocence should never be condoned," Momo interrupted quietly. And suddenly they weren't talking about Orihime's children anymore.

He was silent for so long that she briefly thought they'd lost contact. "I didn't say that. Momo…Soul Society sucks the innocence out of everyone. There's no use doing it by half-measures."

And incoming message from Soul Society threw her mind off track. "I have to go," she said in a rush, switching frequencies without waiting for his response. "Yes?"

A resigned sigh was carried over to her from the man watching the monitors. "Incoming, Hinamori-fukutaicho. Seven Hollows, north-west of the gate."

"Right." Instantly, Momo was all business, flicking over again. There was no flash-stepping in the Dagai, so Shuuhei would have to handle the Hollows. "Shuuhei--"

"The doors are open. I'm on it, Momo."

"Send the troops! It's not a good idea for you to be using--"

"Frontlines, forward!"

She stared at his form in the distance ahead. The senkaimon opened, and he disappeared, directing the troops. The earpiece buzzed once, then crackled silent.

The Hollows were dispatched without issue, but Shuuhei didn't turn his headset back on.

The sight that greeted Momo when she finally exited the Dagai was much welcomed. Ishida Orihime stood in between two children who could only belong to her. The girl stood with her back ramrod straight, obviously uncomfortable as the young boy made a jump in the air, trying to catch a butterfly.

"Momo!" Orihime waved her arms wildly in the air. "Momo! It's so good to see you, Momo!"

She couldn't help but smile as she alighted on the ground in front of the family. No matter how angry or upset Momo was, Orihime had that effect on people. "Orihme-chan." She hugged the other woman. "It's good to see you too."

"Kaa-san, is this who we were waiting for?" the boy - Sora - asked, tugging on Orihime's sleeve. He flicked a lock of night-dark hair out of blue eyes and gave Momo an exact replica of his mother's grin.

"Hai, hai!" Orihime grabbed the hands of both of her children and dragged them in front of Momo. "Sora-kun, Ryuu-chan, this is Hinamori Momo. She's a fukutaicho in the Seireitei, like Aunt Rukia and Aunt Rangiku, except she was an acting-taicho as well which means that she's really, really powerful."

"Powerful like Uncle Ichigo?" Sora asked eagerly.

Momo thought wistfully of her Captain. With the whatever-that-had-been with Shuuhei, she missed his easy-going nature acutely.

Ryuu elbowed her twin in the gut. "Idiot. No one's as powerful as Ichigo. That's the whole _point_." She peered up at Momo through her hair, and the vice-captain realised with a shock that, bar a pair of blue eyes instead of brown, the girl was the spitting image of her mother. Or, she would have been if not for the suspicious look on her face. "Che. Shinigami." She nearly spat the word

"Ryuu-chan!" Orihime gave Momo an apologetic look before turning to her daughter again. "Don't be rude."

It was so _strange_. In Momo's mind, Orihime hadn't changed overly much from the empathetic but hyperactive teenager she'd met after the war. Perhaps the scars had faded some, but in the Seireitei, Ishida Orihime was eternally youthful.

Here, she was a mother.

"I'm sorry," Ryuu said easily, but her eyes were entirely unrepentant.

"Ne, Ryuu-chan, why d'you hate shinigami so much anyway?" Sora demanded. "Uncle Ichigo and Aunt Rukia are shinigami." He bit his lip in concentration as his eyes tracked the butterfly again.

"That's _different."_

"Really? Well, what about Aunt Rangiku?" Tentatively, the boy waved his hand in the air.

Momo blinked at how readily Sora accepted his sister's non-answer.

"Look, I told you it's different, all right? Just trust me."

"Okay!" He waved his hand again and jumped after the butterfly.

Orihime sighed a little, obviously used to her children interacting like this. "Ryuu-chan's a little over-protective," she stage-whispered to Momo, before her eyes slid over the woman's shoulder in surprise. "Oh! Hisagi-san!" She frowned a little. "What are you doing here?"

Momo frowned. For some reason, she hadn't felt the slightest stirring of his reiatsu. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ryuu's stony glare.

"The mission outline changed, Orihime-san," Shuuhei replied, and Momo heard his voice like she must have, calm and mature. "Momo and I are commanding the Guard jointly this quarter."

"Oh." Orihime thought about that. "But what about Rukia and Ichigo's wedding? You'll miss it!"

"It's been taken care of, Orihime," Momo assured her friend. "Shuuhei's fukutaicho will come and replace me when I go for fittings, and she's more than capable of taking charge when we both go home for the actual wedding. Are you taking your--"

"Momo. We have to go now."

She glared at him for interrupting. "I'm not staying at Urahara's."

He blinked in surprise, and an unreadable look passed over his face. "What?"

"I already organised to stay at Orihime's so we could catch up." Momo restrained herself from bitting her lip in embarrassment. She _had_ already organised it, and that was at least the third time he'd interrupted her that day. Plus, she was angry with him. She didn't particularly want to be angry at him, but she was.

The scream of a Hollow interrupted her thought process. Without thinking she drew Tobiume, only to be cut off by the flash of a glowing blue arrow slicing through the air in front of her face. Shuuhei grabbed her arm and yanked her back, unnecessarily, as the arrow ripped into the butterfly Sora had been trying so hard to catch and pierced the mask of the rogue Hollow beyond.

Momo stared at Ryuu, who lowered her bow with a grim look on her small face.

_She's only ten, and she wears a look like that. I don't understand._

Shuuhei's voice echoed in her head. _Soul Society sucks the innocence out of everyone. There's no use doing it by half-measures._

"Ryuu-chan."

The girl looked up at her mother's face, and there was an eager sort of hope there that Momo recognised all too well. She swallowed, hard, against the memory of a younger Hinamori Momo and a faithful Aizen Sousuke.

_He was never faithful. You know that._

"Thank you," Orihime said quietly, and a soft smile spread across Ryuu's face as the bow dissipated. But Momo could see the fear repressed in Orihime's eyes and thought she knew what it was that made the woman afraid for her daughter.

Sora burst out into loud, wailing tears.

"Ryuu-chan! You killed it! It's dead, you killed it!"

For a moment Momo thought the child was talking about the Hollow his sister had just dispatched. Then she saw Sora crouching on the ground, carefully scooping up the remains of the butterfly. He didn't appear to have even noticed the Hollow.

"I hate you, Ryuu-chan!"

"Sora!" Orihime exclaimed. "Don't be cruel!"

Momo wasn't looking at Sora, or even Orihime. Her eyes were centred in on Ryuu's face, on the look of total devastation there, and she just wanted to pick the girl up, hug her and not let her go until everything was all right again.

_:Your arms would fall off: _Tobiume argued. _:No one can hold on for that long.:_

xXx

_Ugh. This has not been my however long it's been. __**cricketchick1990 **__hastens to assure me it doesn't suck ass, but I'm not happy with this chapter. At all. Especially not with the way it ended. I wanted to explain what's going on with Ryuu, and the whole Shuuhei/Momo fight came out of nowhere andandand._

Ugh_. That's pretty much the way to describe it. I tried not to do it, but Momo has followed my mood and sunk into the angst. I'll se what I can do to fix her up, all right? My holidays start tomorrow, so maybe that'll help out._


	9. Chapter 9

_All right! I know it's been a while (well, in comparison to my usual updates, that is) but I swear to god this chapter was so incredibly difficult to write until yesterday, when I was rereading some of my Ran/Bya oneshots and was hit with the need to write their wedding. Of course, I can't write their wedding till I get there in ToD, so I need to write ToD. You see what I did there, lol?_

_Now, thanks to Stef, I've stumbled across a fantastic writer. **Lira1123. **Seriously, she wrote a Gin/Ran that _I_ loved, and we all know my OTP. (RAN/BYA FTW!) Seriously though, check her out. She's written some IchiRuki and other things as well._

_And in my own interests, the collaboration between **bellzooks** and I, the Naruto/Bleach crossover **Ozymandias**, is up. We've had an absolutely fantastic response so far, but if you're interested in a crossover that has thought! And planning! And maybe even plot! Check it out? Please? (End shameless self-pimpage. Am I only half a whore if it's co-authored?)_

xXx

"Where's Uryuu-san?" Momo asked curiously as she was led into the large Ishida family home. From the colour scheme alone, it was obvious who lived there.

Orihime sighed, a little forlorn as Sora ran on ahead, dragging a reluctant Ryuu with him. When you were that young, forgiveness came quickly. "He's working, again. Ichigo left us the clinic when he died, but it's hard, running that and the hospital. We're thinking of selling."

Momo blinked. "The clinic?" It was understandable that they would, if it was too much for them, but she wondered how her Captain would feel about his childhood home in the hands of strangers.

Orihime frowned. "Don't be silly, Momo. We'd never sell the clinic. No, I meant the hospital."

"Oh. I, uh. Of course."

"Ryuu-chan! You're doing it wrong!" Sora's clear voice carried to them as they entered the lounge. Ryuu was half-heartedly trundling a toy car along the ground, looking as if she would rather be having her teeth pulled.

"Well, why don't you _show_ me how to do it properly, Sora?" the girl asked, exasperated.

"My family doesn't belong in this world," Orihime said quietly.

"Hmm?" Momo stared, the out of character comment taking her off guard.

The woman started, then laughed, waving her hands in front of her face. "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just thinking out loud. Come on, sit down - would you like something to drink? We've only got every health drink in the world."

"Ah…no, I'm fine, thank you." But she did take the offered seat.

"Are you sure? Really, we've got - Sora-kun, stop pinching Ryuu-chan."

"But kaa-san! She doesn't _do_ anything."

Momo looked over at the children. Ryuu was indeed just sitting there with a long-suffering look on her face as her brother pinched her repeatedly in the arm.

"Ryuu-chan," Orihime sighed. "Stop _letting _him pinch you."

"It doesn't hurt," the girl shrugged in response, but nonetheless complied with her mother's request, gently taking her brother's hand and repositioning it on one of the toys. It seemed Sora was easily distracted.

"So." Orihime dropped herself into the chair opposite Momo and beamed. She was in her thirties now, but that smile made her look like a teenager again. "Tell me everything. How is everyone? The children? Does Rukia look pregnant? When did you and Hisagi start dating?"

It was a good thing Momo had refused that drink, otherwise she had the feeling that she would have either choked on it or sprayed it all over the table. "_What_?"

"Come on, Momo, my womanly intuition is never wrong! Well, there was the one time with Uryuu, but that hardly counts. Actually, now that I think about it, I was wrong about Tatsuki and Chad for a long time, but they _did_ end up together eventually, so that's all right. But to be fair, I _never_ saw Rangiku and Byakuya…"

"Shuuhei and I aren't dating!" Momo protested. "We're just friends."

Orihime winked. "Close friends, obviously." She frowned slightly at Momo's confused look. "Well, you're calling him by his given name, aren't you?"

The vice-captain's eyes went so wide she was faintly surprised they didn't fall out of her head. "I - I _am?_"

"You just said it," Ryuu commented flatly as she was dragged past the table by an enthusiastic Sora.

Orihime started to laugh at the look on her face.

"I -we're not dating," Momo said again. "I don't date." _I just fall in love in the most horrible, inappropriate ways_.

"Well, why _aren't_ you dating?"

"We - I'm angry at him! We just had an…well, not really an argument. A disagreement. I'm angry at him," she repeated, trying for a firm note to her voice and failing miserably.

"A lover's tiff, perhaps?" Orihime teased, brown eyes sparkling.

"No! I - _no!_"

"Kaa-san, what's a lover?" Sora called from another room.

"A special friend!" Orihime replied, winking at Momo.

"Like Kioshi?"

"…Not quite."

"Who's Kioshi?" Momo asked, hoping to throw Orihime off. She really wasn't equipped to deal with such a ludicrous suggestion - _Shuuhei?_

_:When did he become Shuuhei?:_

_:Some time after his birth, I'd imagine. Probably not more than a week though. I hear humans don't like leaving these things for too long.:_

_:Oh, shush you. You're no help whatsoever.:_

_:I try.:_

"Kioshi is Chad and Tatsuki's son," Orihime explained. "He's two years older than the twins and very protective of Sora."

Momo glanced in the direction the twins had wandered off in and remembered Ryuu's cool dispatching of the Hollow not an hour before. "It seems like everyone is very protective of Sora," she said carefully.

Orihime sighed, drawing small circles on the table with her forefinger. "You mean Ryuu-chan?"

"I don't mean to pry," Momo said hastily.

"No, no, it's fine." Orihime tried to smile, but she looked tired. Drawn. "She's always been like this. Sora's not a Quincy, although he does have a large reiatsu. And large reiatsu attract Hollows, so Ryuu-chan…she sees herself as having to protect him. The woman forced a laugh. "Oh, look at me, laying my worries on you!"

"I don't--" _--really mind…_

Orihime cut her off, seemingly without noticing. "Come on, so tell me - when did you and Shuuhei start _dating?_"

"We're not dating!"

xXx

Uryuu didn't come home until long after Momo had retired to her bed in the guest room.

"Orihime." Over the years, Momo had noticed, the man's voice had softened and deepened, become calmer. It was full of worried resignation now. "You shouldn't have waited up for me."

"I barely get to see you as it is," Orihime replied, trying for a cheerful tone and failing miserably.

Uryuu's sigh echoed through to Momo in her room.

_This is a private conversation,_ she realised. _I shouldn't be listening to it. _Not that there was much she could do to stop them talking.

"I'm—" The man broke off and sighed again. "Did Hinamori get here all right?" She sensed that this wasn't what he had intended to say. "I felt the Hollows, but nothing untoward seemed to happen."

"Ryuu killed another one," Orihime said, and now there was a strained note to her voice that made Momo's heart ache to think on it. "She had the bow _ready, _Uryuu, even with all these shinigami around."

A long pause that Momo could recognise all too well.

_Guilt._

"And then she _looked_ at me, Uryuu, like all she needed was my approval. What could I say? 'No, I don't want you protecting yourself and your brother?'"

"It's devotion, Orihime," Uryuu said, so quietly that Momo almost missed it.

_Shouldn't be listening, shouldn't be listening._

"She's ten years old! I didn't…I didn't want this life for her. I didn't want _our_ life for her. And she's changed, Uryuu. She used to have her own interests and goals, but now all she cares about is protecting Sora."

Another long pause. Guilt, trying to disguise itself as contemplation. Uryuu knew _something_ that he wasn't telling his wife.

Orihime was crying now, so softly it barely carried through the walls. Momo's heart ached all the more for her friend.

Uryuu murmured something too quiet for her to hear, but nonetheless were obviously said in a comforting, loving tone. Momo shook her head as tears pricked at her eyes.

How wrong was it, to be jealous of what Orihime had when she was so distressed?

That night, Momo dreamt of Aizen.

xXx

"_Hinamori-kun."_

_Momo jerked up from the paperwork pillow she'd nearly fallen asleep on. "Aizen-taicho! I'm so sorry, I was just…"_

_She trailed off, heart pounding at his gentle smile. "Not to worry, Hinamori-kun. From what I recall, the papers today are particularly tedious."_

_Momo laughed, delighted that he wasn't angry with her. Of course, he was never angry. Disappointed, yes, but never angry. Although, she sometimes wondered if that wasn't worse. "What have you been up to, Aizen-taicho?" she asked, cocking her head a little to the side._

"_Research." _

_She frowned a little. "What sort of research?"_

_Aizen was silent for a long time, contemplating her somehow. She squirmed, a little uncomfortable, but mostly pleased that he was spending time with her. _

"_Can you keep a secret, Momo?"_

"_Of course!"_

"_It's a very dangerous secret."_

"_You can trust me with anything, Aizen-taicho!" She blushed, embarrassed and honoured that he was even considering telling her something so important._

_He looked at her again for a long time, and she wondered what he was thinking. A dangerous secret? What sort of dangerous things could her Captain have gotten involved in? _

"_Have you ever heard of Vaizard, Momo?"_

xXx

It was only after Momo had woken up and punched her pillow that she realised there was another presence in the room.

"What are you doing in here, Ryuu-san?" she asked carefully, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"You talk in your sleep," the girl replied stonily.

Momo stared. "I…had a bad dream?"

"I saw you punch the pillow."

To say she was floored may have been an overstatement, but not by much. "Ryuu--"

"Are you going to hurt my brother?"

Momo gaped. "_What?_ Of course not! Why on earth would I?"

"You're a shinigami." The girl paused, and then actually looked nervous, as if she was struggling to phrase something.

She had very few social graces, Momo realised. Devoted to her brother as she was, she probably wasn't used to dealing with other people. Most likely she saw everyone as a potential threat because this was Karakura and everything _was_ a potential threat.

_Soul Society sucks the innocence out of everyone. There's no use doing it by half-measures._

"Come here, Ryuu-san," Momo said softly. The girl didn't move, hovering in the doorway. The vice-captain sighed. "What was it you wanted to ask?"

"I--" The girl swallowed, hard, and took a step into the room. "Whatcanyoutellmeaboutthewar?"

Momo, her mind still half caught up in the dream, said the first thing that popped into her head. "What war?"

Ryuu's face scrunched up into a disconcerting mask of rage, the resemblance to her mother disappearing in an expression that Orihime had never worn. "They got to you too!" she yelled. "Why won't anybody tell me the truth? Everyone treats me like a child!"

"Ryuu-san, you _are_ a--" But the girl had already stormed out of the room. A childish fit of anger about something no child should ever be involved in.

_:How did she find out? How on _earth _did she find out?:_

_:Maybe it wasn't on earth?:_

Perhaps…No, it wasn't possible. Anyone who came into contact with the twins was told that the war was off limits. No hints whatsoever.

The guilt in Uryuu's voice the night before popped into Momo's mind, but she brushed that off. Even if the man _had_ decided to go behind Orihime's back and inform their daughter, he would have done it in such a way that she knew all the details. There was no way he'd be so irresponsible as to actually leave her hanging like that.

_What has our world done to you, Ryuu?_

"Momo-san, Momo-san!" Sora careened into the room. "Kioshi's here! Have you met Kioshi? He's here, he's here, he's here!"

Momo laughed at his enthusiasm before glancing over at the bedside clock. "Nine? Oh no! I have patrol!"

"No, you don't." Orihime was standing in the doorway now, hands resting lightly on her son's shoulders. Her face was open and easy, as usual, with no sign of last night's conversation with her husband there. "Hisagi-san popped over about two hours ago and said he'd take today's shift."

"What? But - but he took last night's! And he's still on for tonight - he didn't say anything about swapping did he?"

Orihime giggled, and Sora echoed her. "He said you'd worry, but he told me to tell you not to. He doesn't mind taking the extra shifts." The woman winked. "An apology, perhaps?"

Even after a lengthy conversation on the matter, Momo hadn't been able to convince her friend that she didn't have feelings for Shuuhei. Which was especially irritating, because she really _didn't_. She was firmly, horribly in love with her Captain, thanks all the same, and content to wallow in it.

"I'll have to join him at some stage today anyway," Momo mused, not deigning to respond to Orihime's teasing. "The whole point of him being here is so that I can help him with his zanpakuto."

"Momo-san?" Sora's blue eyes were sparkling.

"Hmm?"

"Kioshi's here! Kioshi's here! Kioshi's here!" He tore himself away from his mother and ran down the hall. Orihime smiled fondly after him.

"He seems…" Momo struggled to find a word to describe the young boy. "Happy," she finished lamely.

"I worry for him," Orihime admitted. "He's so…innocent. Between Ryuu and Kioshi-kun, he's been fairly sheltered from the world." She shook her head as if ridding herself from the melancholy, and smiled widely, grabbing Momo's hand. "Never mind me. Come on, Momo, Tatsuki's here!"

"E-eh?" the vice-captain exclaimed as she was dragged from the room. "But Orihime, I'm not dressed properly!"

"That's all right, neither am I!"

Momo was lead to the large backyard that she hadn't had the chance to see the day before. Arisawa Tatsuki (who had stubbornly kept her family name) was arguing good naturedly about something with Uryuu, while Sado seemed content to sit and watch the children.

Momo's heart nearly broke when she caught sight of Ryuu. Sora was playing some sort of game with another boy who Momo assumed to be Kioshi. He had a similar build to his father - he certainly didn't look twelve - but with his mother's dark hair and eyes, carefully watching as Sora chased another butterfly around the yard.

Ryuu was watching this with a look of utmost longing on her face. Despite this, her form was tense, ready for any danger.

"Hinamori!" Momo tore her eyes away from the young girl to smile at Tatsuki, who had broken off her argument with Uryuu. "It's good to see you - been what, five years?"

"Longer," Momo replied, smiling as the woman pulled her into a one-armed hug. "Please, call me Momo."

"Sure thing. Have you been keeping the idiot in line?"

Momo laughed, although it was a little awkward. "Why does everyone keep calling Ichigo-taicho an idiot?"

"Because he is," Uryuu supplied, only to be hit on the shoulder by his wife. Orihime had wormed her way under his arm in the meantime, and they stood side by side looking like the perfect couple.

The rest of the greetings were exchanged, Momo receiving an identical smile and nod from Sado and Kioshi, although Sado shook her hand whereas his son turned straight back to Sora and whatever game the child wanted to play next.

Momo found herself inundated with questions from Tatsuki as a maid - they had _maids?_ - served breakfast. Soon enough Orihime joined in with questions she hadn't asked the day before, with Uryuu making the odd cutting comment (usually about Ichigo). When Tatsuki and Uryuu started arguing again, Momo took the time to look over at the children.

Ryuu looked like she was sitting through some sort of exquisite torture, brown eyes boring holes in Kioshi's back as the older boy carefully lifted Sora up so her twin could catch the butterfly. This, however, failed to work, so Kioshi set the boy on the ground again and after a few moments contemplation, gently snatched the butterfly out of the air, making a cage with his fingers and passing it on to Sora.

The blue-eyed boy was delighted. "Ryuu-chan! Ryuu-chan, look what Kioshi got…Ryuu-chan?"

She was looking for them, so Momo was probably the only one in the yard who saw the tears as Ryuu fled into the house.

xXx

_As always, thanks for reading!_


	10. Chapter 10

_Eheh. So you guys remember when I said I'd be back by December? Yeeeeeeeeeeeah...sorry! I didn't mean to leave it so long, really!_

_My excuse is that real life is a bitch and also that I have no excuse. But I am hoping to get into regular updates again now! I definitely won't leave it _this_ long to update again, promise!_

_Anyway! After too many months to count, I give you chapter ten!_

xXx

Orihime had been in the middle of chiding Ishida for some remark about Ichigo when her daughter fled the area. She cut herself off immediately, pushing her chair back and standing, about to go after the girl.

Momo bit her lip, watching the door Ryuu had run through slam shut behind her as Ishida placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. She wanted to follow, but it wasn't her place. She barely even knew the girl. She wasn't even that close to Orihime, really.

"Don't," Ishida said softly.

"But—" The expression on Orihime's face was imploring. The feeling in Momo's chest that this wasn't just child's tantrum intensified.

"You can't run after her every time she does this, Orihime." Ishida's voice was gentle and regretful, and Momo was struck once again at just how he had matured since the War. "Otherwise she'll never get over it."

"She always does that," Sora huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. The butterfly had escaped in his surprise at Ryuu's reaction. "Every time Kioshi's over here. She's so stupid sometimes." Behind the annoyed look on his face was a faintly worried glint. "...did I make her leave like that?" he asked his mother, bewildered.

Orihime shook head, giving her son a bright smile, the worry for her daughter carefully hidden. "She's just grumpy," she told him lightly. "You know how she gets sometimes."

Sora grinned in response. "Yeah, I know." His arms fell to his sides, and it was only then that he seemed to notice the absence of his butterfly. The look of horror on his face was almost comical. "K-Kioshi! The butterfly escaped!" he cried, letting go of the matter of his sister as easily as he had the butterfly.

Momo watched as Orihime's smile dimmed, wishing she could do something. This was something that Momo was pretty sure she couldn't blame herself for, but that didn't mean she didn't want to help her friend.

"Ryuu's still jealous of Kioshi, huh?" Tatsuki broke the silence among the adults as the sounds of Kioshi entertaining Sora again interrupted the quiet of the yard.

"I don't think jealous is the right word for it," Ishida sighed. "It's gone deeper than that in the past few months." He glanced at Orihime. "I think we should take her to see someone."

_See someone? As in – a therapist? _Momo blinked. But – the girl was only ten years old. Did ten-year-olds need to see therapists? Maybe that wasn't what he had meant.

Orihime's head jerked up. "N-no!" A pause. "Ryuu-chan doesn't like herself very much, Uryuu. You _know_ that. I don't want her thinking that there's – that there's something wrong with her."

"What if there is?" Tatsuki asked bluntly. "If you're that worried about her, Orihime, maybe you need to."

Orihime shook her head stubbornly. "If she won't talk to her family, she won't talk to a stranger. You know how shy she is."

Momo wasn't sure this was a conversation she should have been sitting in on, but no one else seemed to be worried about her presence. She glanced at the house, and then back to her friends, wondering if she should tell them about her encounter with the girl. It wasn't really any of her business, but...maybe it would help them. At the very least, she didn't think it could hurt.

"Uhm." Momo blushed very slightly as all four heads turned to look at her. She abruptly felt very young, as if she was the age she looked rather than over two centuries old. "This morning, Ryuu-chan, she...she asked me about the War. She wanted me to tell her about it."

Silence. Then—

"Did you tell her about it?" Ishida asked. Momo flinched against the harsh tone to his voice. She could tell if it was accusatory or simply worried, but it was in her nature to assume the former.

"Uryuu!" Orihime cried. "Momo knows we wanted it kept a secret, she would never have told Ryuu!" The woman didn't even glance at Momo to try and confirm this by her expression. When Ishida Orihime put her faith in you, it seemed it was an all or nothing thing.

"Why don't we let Hinamori explain before we start jumping the gun, huh?" Tatsuki asked, giving her an evaluating look before she directed a level gaze at Ishida.

His jaw tightened slightly, looking as though he was just barely restraining himself from shooting something back. Tatsuki merely raised an eyebrow at him, leaning against her husband's shoulder. Sado, Momo noticed, had shifted his attention from the occupants of the garden table to the children playing at the other side of the yard. This was not, she presumed, a conversation anyone wanted being overheard.

Ishida had just opened his mouth to say something when Orihime laid a gentle hand on his wrist. There were no words between the two of them; there didn't need to be. They didn't even exchange a glance. Nonetheless, after a moment's pause, Ishida subtly relaxed, shoulders slumping slightly as he pushed up his glasses. The faint flash they gave off highlighted blue eyes for a second, eyes that both of his children possessed. They were tired and drawn-looking, however, and it didn't look like a recent development.

"I'm sorry, Hinamori," he said quietly. "Would you mind explaining what it was, exactly, that Ryuu asked you?"

Momo shook her head. "N-no! It's fine, I understand. You're just looking out for your daughter." She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "I...she was in my room when I woke up. She asked me about the War, and I was still half asleep, so I said 'what war?'." _Half asleep and stuck in the past, that is._ "And then she yelled something like 'they got to you too!' at me, and ran out of the room." Momo frowned. "Actually, she wanted people to stop treating her like a child. I tried to tell her that she _was_ a child before she ran out."

Orihime's face was twisted into an expression that Momo had never imagined the usually light-hearted woman could wear. "How did she find out?" she whispered. "We were so careful...maybe someone slipped up? Accidents happen..."

Momo knew the look well, she wore it often enough, so when a flicker guilt crossed Ishida's otherwise impassive face, she recognised it for what it was.

_What is going on there?_ she wondered, although she didn't say anything. _That_ was definitely none of her business.

"Would it be so bad, Orihime?" Tatsuki asked her friend. "If Ryuu knew? She's a smart girl, she's obviously pieced some things together, however it happened. I'd bet my other arm that she's figured out I didn't lose this one in a car accident." She waved the stump of her arm casually. "And you know we've already told Kioshi."

Orihime shook her head. "Ryuu isn't Kioshi-kun. She's not – she's only _ten_," she finished helplessly.

Tatsuki's gaze softened. "Orihime. You can't keep her innocent forever. She's already—"

The other woman looked down at her hands. "She's my daughter, Tatsuki. I'll keep her innocent for as long as I can. Ten-year-old girls are not meant to be worrying about whether or not their brother is going to be eaten the next time he goes to the park!" She still hadn't looked up from her hand, but there was a certain tone, a strength to her voice that Momo recognised from listening to the other mothers in her acquaintance talking about their children. "She's not one of us. Even if the world did need saving again, we're still here to do it."

Momo was abruptly overcome with the need to escape. She did not belong with these people, who had fought and lost so much in the War while she had been – not-fighting. Shakily, she got to her feet. "I – I'm sorry." She stumbled over her words as they all looked at her again. "I don't mean to leave so suddenly, but I really have to see Shuuhei. He – his bankai. It's really the reason we came here together, and. It's not fair that he takes so many shifts. But thank you very much for letting me stay!" Without waiting for a response, she made a quick exit. She almost went to flash-step, before remembering that she was in a gigai and therefore unable to do so.

It had been a long time since she had felt so _actively_ guilty about the War. Usually it was just something she lived with, something she knew that she would probably never forgive herself for. But faced with those people who, as _teenagers_, had given their all to a war that wasn't even theirs in the first place...

Momo couldn't help but feel incredibly unworthy.

She stumbled her way to the guest bedroom that had been termed hers for her stay in the real world. Shucking the gigai and placing it on the bed, she leaned against the wall, door still open, and closed her eyes with one hand placed on the comforting familiarity of Tobiume's hilt.

A sigh from the spirit of her zanpakutō. _:Again, Momo?:_ Branches shifted in their inner world, shaking off some of the wet from the sudden downpour. _:I'm going to drown,:_ he announced.

"You are not going to drown," she said aloud, touching a hand to her cheek in surprise. It was wet.

_:I will,: _he insisted. _:Just to spite you and this incessant need to be guilty all the time.:_

"It's not a need!" she protested, eyes flying open. Her vision was oddly layered, the simple set up of the guest room overlaid with the stark grey of their inner world, a large tree planted sullenly in the corner of the room as rain fell from the ceiling and water swirled around its roots.

Tobiume huffed. _:If you say so.:_

"I do say so," Momo replied. It was _not_ a need. It was what she deserved. It was. "Now, we're going to see Shuuhei." The rain lessened slightly, although she didn't notice. "Seeing as that really is why he came here."

_:Yay, Tora,:_ the tree-spirit replied dryly.

"I could always just leave you behind?" she suggested, stepping over her gigai on the bed to get to the window and push it open. It was the simplest method of escape.

_:I could always just not cut things?:_ he replied, mimicking her tone nearly exactly. They set to bickering, and by the time she got to the area of town the commander of the Karakura Guard typically staked out, she had almost forgotten what it was that had made her leave so fast.

Of course, that left room for other things to creep into her head. Like the fact that the last time she had seen Shuuhei, she had been angry at him. Something about him being overbearing and rude. And cynical.

_:And right.:_

"You're a cynic too," she accused Tobiume as familiar reiatsu approached.

_:And I'm you, so what does that tell you?:_

"That clearly, repression has been working wonders," she sniffed, only half joking. The dream about Aizen flitted through her mind before she slammed it to the back again.

"Don't let Isane hear you say that." That familiar reiatsu she'd felt before washed over her, steady and calm. Momo turned around to see Shuuhei standing out in midair, next to her rooftop. "Ever since that whole thing with Kurosaki Karin and the Random Memory Regeneration, she's been diversifying."

Momo shook her head, giving him a welcoming smile. "I'm not good enough at repressing to warrant a case of RMR," she told him. "I'm also not an echo."

"Thankfully," Shuuhei added, before pausing. "About yesterday—"

"And hello to you too!" Momo added hastily, not wanting him to say in words the apology that was clearly written across his face. "Honestly, Shuuhei, basic manners," she teased. "Now, are you ready for your training?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, thus informing her that her subtlety still required some work. "In the middle of patrol?" he asked her.

"The middle of patrol is the best time to do it," Momo affirmed. "It's killing two birds with one stone. Literally."

The other eyebrow rose. She got the feeling he was making fun of her.

"I'm serious!" she protested, a smile tugging at her lips anyway. "You need to commune with Tora, and meditation isn't going to work just yet. What she really needs is a proper workout. Something mindless that neither of you will have to concentrate on too much, and where there's no pressure to win. Once she's got the bloodlust out of her system, she should be easier to deal with."

Momo actually wasn't pulling this from thin air. Using her own relationship with her zanpakutō as a case study, she had personally developed a training method that helped shinigami form a closer bond with the spirit of their swords. She had tested it with Rangiku before the other vice-captain had been required to take over Tenth, and had implemented it in Fifth while she was still Acting Captain. As a result, her Division had one of the highest rates of shinigami with shikai in the Gotei 13.

"So we're going to kill Hollows?" Shuuhei clarified.

"No. _You're_ going to kill Hollows. I'm here to tell you when to stop."

"...I don't stop when we run out of Hollows?"

The smile developed into a full grin, and an emotion she couldn't quite decipher flickered behind his eyes. Her worry of Ryuu and her general guilt were quickly melting away now that she was sure Shuuhei wasn't about to go all cynical on her again, and while it would no doubt return later, for now it was nice simply to enjoy his company. "No. Tobiume will keep an eye on Tora, and he'll let me know when to let you know when to stop. Then we move on to step two. Got it?"

There was a weird expression on his face as he replied. "I get it." A pause. "So the student become the teacher, huh?"

Momo laughed, shaking her head in denial again. "I'm not a teacher. I'm just – helping you out."

"You're not a teacher _yet_," he corrected.

She smiled at his remembered. "Not a teacher yet," she agreed. "But wanting to be one still doesn't make me one, and I was never really your student anyway. Now, are you ready to go?"

"Hai, sensei," he replied, face perfectly straight.

She hit him in the shoulder anyway, laughing. "Come on then. Let's go."

xXx

_All right! I doubt that was worth so long a wait, but I at least hope you liked it ^_^ A little more on Ryuu and the Ishida family, and a little more Momo/Shuuhei interaction. _

_THINGS WILL START HAPPENING SOON, I PROMISE!_


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